AMAZING TOMATOES

      As I sit here eating tomato slices from tomatoes our good neighbors gave us from their garden, I reflect on the beauties, nutrition and history of tomatoes.  I saw the many yellow flowers on the tomato plants that produced the deep-orange fruits I am eating.  I saw the little, green knobs that grew from the fertilized blooms grow bigger and bigger, turning yellow, then a beautiful orange as they grew.  

     I saw the tomato plants basking in sunlight and showering in rainfall.  Chlorophyll in the green leaves of tomato plants traps sunlight and puts it to work to combine hydrogen from rainwater drawn from the ground by the plants' roots and stems, and carbon dioxide from the air to form sugar that feeds the growth of the plants and ripening tomatoes.  Animals and people use oxygen green plants expel as a waste product, and animals and people exhale carbon dioxide, which green plants take in to help produce sugar for their growth.  Simply by breathing, people and animals help grow their food.

     Many people raise a variety of domestic tomatoes at home; in gardens, and in pots on backyard decks, front porches, windowsills and outdoor steps.  One or a few tomato plants can produce many lovely, edible fruits, right at home, to the self-satisfaction of the growers.    

     I've read that Native Americans, probably in Central America, were the first people to domesticate and consume tomatoes.  Europeans learned about tomatoes as a food, and tomatoes were soon raised and ingested in Europe.  Today, products from tomatoes are many, and big business.  They are eaten raw, and used to make ketchup, soup, pizzas and paste.  And they are sliced as part of sandwiches, burgers, subs and salads.

     Backyard wildlife, including striped skunks, opossums, gray squirrels, mice, a variety of wasps, hornets, butterflies and earwigs, and a variety of birds, benefit from eating tomatoes discarded and decaying in backyard gardens.  Chickens and swine also like to eat them.

      As in all seeds, tomato seeds have within them the miracle of growth.  I have thrown half-rotten tomatoes into gardens.  Apparently, some of the seeds survived the hunger of creatures and the cold of winter because young tomatoes grew the next spring from the seeds in discarded tomatoes.

     Ripe tomatoes also appeal to our sense of beauty.  They are decorative hanging on their green plants in full view of our notice, right at home, or in fields of them.  Tomatoes have a history and life history, as do all domestic plants, including corn, potatoes and others that are edible to people.     

             

     

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