It’s never too late to recover

Remember that heat dome over the West Coast last June? The one that led to Lytton being burned to the ground and hundreds of people dying? Yeah, that one. Well, I have a personal story about its after-effects in our home. And no, it’s nowhere near as significant or serious as the above-listed tragedies. It’s more positive.

Every year, Mr. Fluffster tends at least one cherry tomato plant on our balcony. Most years, these yield up to 40 to 50 cherry tomatoes. He tries a different variety each year. Some years are more successful than others.

This year’s crop got off to a good start. Lots of blooms started, so we were anticipating lots of tasty snacks. However, when that heat dome struck, the leaves browned and shrivelled, and most of the blooms withered and dropped off. We ended up with 10, maybe 12, tomatoes by mid-August. They were tasty, but there were so few of them, and it was most disappointing (especially alongside my wannabe carrots and pathetic, less-than-flourishing basil). But hey, we got over it, got store-bought instead, and started looking forward to next year’s crop.

Well, in mid-September, much to our surprise, the plant suddenly started perking up. The leaves got green and healthy looking again, and it started to bloom profusely. We told it “You’re a little too late, buster!” But it didn’t listen to us, and continued to sprout blooms. “You’re very pretty,” we thought, “but you’re still too late. Just wait until the weather turns chilly! And there’s no way you’re going to generate proper tomatoes at this time of year.”

Then small tomatoes started to form! We weren’t optimistic that they’d amount to anything before driving rains, wind, and low temperatures set in, but we let them be.

Well, they showed us! Today, I picked the crop pictured above left. There’s now 12 of them ripening on a shelf in the kitchen. It’ll take a few weeks, but all is not lost. And there’s a dozen more still on the vine that are too small to pick just yet (above right — squint and you might see them), but with a few more days of sunshine, they might just make it across the finish line to a suitable size for indoor ripening.

The moral of this story? Don’t give up on your late blooming tomatoes — or our planet — yet. Nature is more resilient than many give it credit for. And it’s worth fighting for.

tomato by Icongeek26 from the Noun Project