The Tomato Pavillion

Now the Florida Keys have a lot to offer a person: sunshine, water, beaches, snorkeling, boating, fish, lobster...

but,there is one thing that the Keys just do not have and that is good tomatoes.

The grocery store varieties are pale, pithy, & tasteless and the ones touted as being "home grown" come down from Homestead and are mediocre at their best.

So, I brought plants back from North Carolina & we're going to try to grow some of our own. There are quite a few obstacles we're going to have to overcome in order to do so, hence the creation of Jeff & Misty's Tomato Pavillion.

The first thing to worry about is the poor little leaves getting cooked in the sun...it's pretty brutal here. I am sure no one ever tried to grow tomatoes at the equator and we are close enough for arguments sake. So, Jeff devised some shade out of some black plastic and stapled it in place.

The fork [you'll have to look CLOSELY] is there merely for decoration...it's been laying in the parking lot for as long as I can remember, so why not staple it to something? Jeff keeps referring to it as a lightening rod and someone else pointed out that it would keep birds off the top...maybe. Next, to keep the wind from ripping the the plants to shreds, the pavillion can be fitted with a wind block, and will probably need to be staked down at that point.

If a hurricane becomes imminent, we'll implement the Pavillion Evacuation Plan...which will consist of hand-trucking the whole thing into the building.

The last thing that we'll have to worry about is keeping the plants from becoming fodder for the iguanas ...because if it blooms, the iguanas will eat it. We're hoping the dog has made his presence known well enough to keep them away. Janus loves chasing iguanas!

So, they don't look like much yet, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and keeping track of their tomato progress. The plants are all different varieties...one yummier than the next. We've got a Better Boy, a German Johnson, and a Cherokee Purple plus 2 plants of a minature variety called Juliann. Jeff also planted Marigold seeds and you can see some peeking up.