THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180168
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 50 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ron Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Let's talk garden today. Or sailing. Or homemade ice cream.
Let's talk about anything that doesn't spin in huge circles, scare the dickens out of us for days and cost Outer Banks businesses a bunch of money.
Right up front, let me tell you that my tomatoes were a disaster this year. That's not easy to admit.
Growing bumper crops of tomatoes is about as tough as boiling water for most gardeners. Usually you pop a few plants in the ground, stand back and in July become the neighborhood pest.
I've had summers where my tomatoes did so well that over-tomatoed neighbors would refuse to answer the door when I came around graciously offering bushels of Thomas Jefferson's favorite fruit.
But not this year.
I stuck a dozen nice plants in the ground last April and started licking my lips. There is nothing like a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato sliced paper-thin, piled on white toast and lathered with mayo.
I think. Because nary a tomato did I harvest this year.
What went wrong baffles me, because the vines were fine. But there was no fruit.
My yearning for a tomato sandwich was satisfied by a couple of neighbors who brought their tomatoes around, generously filling the void.
I took all I was offered, but probably a little ingraciously. For an old farm boy who likes to think he's a distant cousin of Johnny Appleseed, giving is more satisfying than receiving when it comes to tomatoes.
I CAN report that the 15 blueberry plants and the 15 blackberry bushes I planted last spring are doing just fine. So are my eight grapes.
But they don't bear fruit in their first season. So let's talk sailing.
Maybe we shouldn't. Sailing this summer has been about as satisfying as my tomatoes.
And the reason should be given in a whisper (my motor has been on the blink most of the summer).
That's not something a sailor goes around telling, because even the landlocked who don't know port from starboard will make you squirm by innocently saying: ``I thought you had a sailboat, not a motor boat.''
And they really don't understand when I go into a long-winded explanation that I keep the Wind Gypsy at a canal mooring that forces me to head east and north going out and south and west coming home, and that the canal is too narrow to tack and therefore I need a motor either leaving or returning but I never use it otherwise . . .
Anyway, sailing hasn't been memorable this summer. But the motor's fixed now and the Gypsy is going to be part of the Roanoke Island fleet that takes on the Elizabeth City and Edenton sailors on Labor Day weekend.
And I plan to celebrate a successful race with homemade ice cream.
That's what I'm into big time this summer. I've cranked out chocolate and strawberry and vanilla and blueberry and French apple.
The favorite in the neighborhood has been French apple. And I invented it myself, sort of. I use a basic recipe for all kinds (send $100 in cash and a self-addressed envelope and I'll send you the . . . just kidding, just kidding).
Then I throw in a couple of cups of pureed fruit or berries or chocolate syrup. French apple is made from a can of fried apples run through the blender and doused with cinnamon.
I'd about settled on that as the best I can do until a neighbor saw me drinking watermelon juice out of the rind and said he'd tasted watermelon ice cream and thought it was wonderful.
I tried it the next day, and it's the best yet. Add about two or three cups of pureed ripe melon to the basic mix, and enjoy. I love it.
I don't know why my wife keeps telling me to go back to growing tomatoes. by CNB