Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 21, 1995                   TAG: 9508210079
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIME IS RIPE FOR A WINTER TOMATO

It kind of makes me wish I had majored in chemistry - which probably would have been very bad for higher education and me.

You know what I'm talking about here: Bushels of tomatoes all over the country becoming ripe at 2 p.m. on Aug. 20.

For months you watch a bunch of green golf balls, hoping they'll turn red. During this time you're paying $1.19 a pound to people who know more about growing tomatoes than you do.

You went out in late April and bought a kit that measures soil acidity - you think - and then you plowed all of this agricultural lime into the ground to avoid the tragedy of bottom rot.

At this time in the tomato-growing process, I understand some people conduct a modest pagan ceremony, during which they may or may not sacrifice the cat. Others do a ritual dance to the gods of fertility and bottom rot.

Anyway, the first tomato becomes, well, almost red - and it's about the same size it was when it was green.

Meanwhile, the people who know more about tomatoes than you do have gone down to 89 cents a pound, and you buy four pounds.

You come home with four pounds of tomatoes, and people from everywhere appear and give you 18 pounds.

Then your own tomatoes start "coming in," as rustic types who are close to the soil say.

Suddenly, you are over-tomatoed.

Sure, Nancy Lou. I know that folks down on the farm can tomatoes, but you don't have the same vegetable - or is that a fruit? - left after you do that. You ever try making a sandwich out of canned tomatoes, sugar?

Right, Hettie Mae. I know you can make great tomato juice and, consequently, a good Bloody Mary. Yep, Delilah Sue. I know that canned tomatoes make great spaghetti sauce.

But the thing we're talking about here, ladies, is slicing a tomato when the sucker's fresh and fixing a sandwich - after disguising the bread with a pound or two of butter or mayonnaise.

This is the kind of sandwich you used to eat on the front porch after supper.

Now, Igor and I are going into the laboratory to see what we can come up with.

If we get enough thunder and lightning to run this round thing that gives off sparks, we may create an August tomato for Christmas.

Twenty bucks a pound sound about right to you?