Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Pre-Ugly

All looks well and lush in the roadside vegetable garden. Even the corn is still there. The first ears have been eaten, a bit to soon in the rush to beat out the raccoons. Now a liquid potion seems to be keeping them at bay. Our next meal with fresh sweet corn will hopefully have the ears fully plumped up.

Bags full of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash and pole beans have been coming from the garden most recently. WUT else might be growing in there?



A certain competitive gardener in Indiana seems to think she has grown the World's Ugliest Tomato. The rules of these frequent competitions are generally geared to assure a winner. From what I have gleaned, this Ugly Tomato must be ripe and edible and you must eat it.

I won't be eating this lovely contestant produced on the already pre-ugly German Queen heirloom variety of tomato. Disease and internal aliens that make the skin and flesh writhe don't qualify. The World's Ugliest Tomato needs a good deformity and a flawless skin.



The Indiana WUT was really just four tomatoes growing very close together on a super shortened bloom stalk. Individually they were ordinary tomatoes. I don't think they truly qualified as Siamese quadruplet tomatoes. They were not fused together.

The title of the World's Ugliest Tomato is singular. It is one tomato. There is no tomatoes, plural in this title.

My other contestants are not near ripe yet. Carol is anxious though. WUT else might be out there in tomato land. Are her four, very close together tomatoes, just four tomatoes? Is it really the World's Ugliest Individual Tomato?

A true Siamese tomato that is actually fused and deformed could be the real winner.



And if that doesn't pass muster with the judge, well then she can just kiss



My Tomato. When it is ripe of course.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Christopher ~ You are too funny!!! I have not seen Carol's WUT, but I would say yours qualify.

I thought that Fay would head on up and give you some rain later this week, but it looks like it is going northeast, out in the Atlantic and becoming a CAT1, then back northwest and across Georgia. Who knows...you might get some of the remnants. It was actually a dud of a storm. I'll bet we didn't even get 2" of rain.

Good luck in the morning with your cabin roof project. I will be thinking about you and waiting with excitement to see your post on the event.

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

LOL! That is one butt-ugly tomato. You're definitely giving Carol a run for her money with your tomatoes.

Annie in Austin said...

Can you imagine Tom Hanks' asking Rob Reiner, "Is my tomato cute?"*

You might have Carol on a technicality, Christopher - but she's pretty competitive so I don't know...in the meantime, how are you protecting this pre-ugly contestant from the critters?

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

*Sleepless in Seattle... it's pretty old so maybe none of you have seen it.

Christopher C. NC said...

Siria, we were hoping for a lot of rain from Fay. We will take what ever we can get. It is big time dry right now. I will say a little prayer in the morning for a good roof raising before we get started.

MMGD that was exactly my impression of this particular tomato. I know Carol has been lurking. She must be devising a response.

Annie, never saw Sleepless in Seattle. I bet I could google that and find the punch line. The only critters I have seen on the tomatoes are the Horn Worms and I just fling them out onto the scenic highway. I pick the tomatoes about two days before they are fully ripe to beat any other critters to the fruit.

You think Carol is competitive? I bet she likes a good challenge.

chuck b. said...

Those are some fugly tomatoes!

Anonymous said...

My what ugly tomatoes. I've seen some ugly ones in my life time. What's with that one in the first pic?
Weird!!!!

Carol Michel said...

I've been lurking, indeed!

I love a good fair competition. But I must dispute that my WUT was actually four tomatoes. It started out that way, but clearly became ONE with no means to separate them, so it was one tomato in the end, and is still the WUT.

Perhaps you might win in the category of "Tomato that must resembles a "posterior end".

Keep an eye it, like Annie said, or some critter will get it, and it is disqualified if you can't eat it!

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

lisa said...

I don't know....I definately see your technicality, so I agree with you. Then I read Carol's response, and I agree with her too. You have some stellar competitors, regardless!