HOW THE AFORE-MENTIONED HERITAGE TOMATO IS DOING

Mike and Anne came to dinner. They brought with them a tomato plant grown from a heritage seed. As soon as I held it I forgot that I’d said we were absolutely
not planting any more tomato plants this year. And even though I have always declared it inefficient to start tomato plants from seed, I could feel myself
sliding into the future, slicing gently into ripe juicy tomatoes to extract the finest seeds for next year’s planting. This, I suppose, is the magical
influence of a heritage seed.

I never gave much thought to what expectations I ought to have of a heritage tomato. It is only now, in early August, that I realize I had expectations, expectations based on stereotypes rather than research. I could have done some research, can’t now figure out why I didn’t. I could have asked Anne how big the plant gets, when it produces fruit and how much water it takes. I did none of these. I simply thanked, her, told her we would be planting it in a pot on the deck, and ignored her response, which was to hesitate, and then say that it would likely need a good stake, or even a cage. What I ignored was the nonverbal message: Don’t plant it in a pot on the deck!

The heritage tomato seemed pleased with its new home. I transplanted it from Anne’s small carrying pot to a good sized deck pot and put it in the sun to do whatever heritage plants do, missing one important fact—heritage plants didn’t grow in pots. I now realize that the word heritage carries with it certain suggestions, visions of a hardy, independent, self-reliant plant, caring for itself and producing misshapen fruits that generate seeds without the benefit of the planned care given to its grower-bred cousins. That said, I decided to give this heritage tomato a little extra care—regular watering, a dash of fertilizer to compensate for nature’s lack of rain and the pot’s limited nutritional potential.

Things have turned out just as a more discerning psychologist might predict they would. That tomato has become dependent. Relieved of the responsibility of self-care, it grew and grew. Fearing that a tomato cage would be inadequate, we bought it a cage big enough for a peony. It grew out over the top. First came the flowers, then the tomatoes—perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped specimens decoratively adorned with rounded ridges stretching at intervals from top to bottom. One day we came home to find that the plant, pot, cage and all had tipped over. There it lay, begging for assistance. We stood it up. Must have been windy here,”” we said.

The next day was calm. Still, the plant tipped over as it had the day before. That’s when we realized that the cage secured the produce, but did not compensate for the heaviness of the tomatoes on one side, throwing off the balance. That’s when we pressed the geranium pots into service, circling them around to guard against tipping—or so we hope.

So now we wait. Every day we water—sometimes twice. That plant is thirstier than a dusty cowboy in a saloon. And every day those tomatoes grow bigger—and bigger. Who knows how big they can get?

And at summer’s end we will face an existential question: If you coddle a plant, giving it every chance to produce the best seeds, thus affecting future generations through the process of unnatural selection, is it still a heritage plant?