drudger days

[rinue]

Bleurgh I have a headache, and have had a headache most of today. I can't tell whether it's from general curtailment of caffeine this week (Ciro absent), or the heat, or wild swings of heat and pressure, or having to yell several times, or writing around 100 replies to poems in order to catch up with my slush pile. Meanwhile have I taken any medicine at all, no. I've done some deep breathing and drunk herbal tea.

Did an experiment with letting one tomato ripen on the vine on my balcony and taking another similar tomato off the vine while it was yellow to ripen in a newspaper, based on a few farming articles I read which suggested the latter was easier to control and did not lead to loss of flavor or nutrients. Based on this single test, no, the one ripened on the vine was definitely more flavorful. It also had a softer texture, which some people might see as a negative, and could have become mealy if I'd left it out, possibly because the temperature outside peaks above 85 (at which point, per my research, tomatoes start to break down). Seems like for this particular hybrid (which has an uninspiring name like "patio hybrid"), ripening on the vine is the way to go.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I've never found the newspaper technique useful. My parents did it when I was growing up and it just resulted in a mess. I like them right off the vine, though sometimes I take some and ripen them in the windowsill for a day or two, which I haven't found made much of a difference.

Just got my first ones today!