Tomato Twister II

Growing vegetables and flowers on the high plains of Western Kansas requires eternal hope much like a child’s expectant, devoted belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Because we trust, we will harvest succulent, homegrown vegetables and fruits. Each spring gardeners across this region sift through garden magazines and seed catalogues or visit local garden shops with a gambler’s hope that this will be the year.

Eleven years after moving to our limestone hilltop, payday arrived. Yes, Virginia, that garden will produce a bonanza harvest. 

Due to a combination of timely rains and chicken poop, we had a dream tomato harvest--this despite hail that totaled our roof and left tender tomato plants shattered and broken. Despite the setback, vines began producing at the end of July, only a bit later than they might have without Mother Nature’s challenges. Produce was an understatement. The plants burgeoned with softball-sized fruits that tasted like captured sunbeams and covered chins and necks with flavorful juice.

That led to a dilemma. We had a small, raise-bed plot due to our topsoil- challenged circumstances. Based on past plantings, I’d left plenty of room between seedlings so they could stretch, grow, and still leave space to harvest ripe tomatoes.

That year’s timely, ample rains and the perfect addition of cured chicken droppings inspired legendary vine growth. The intertwining plants were over three and half high by three and a half feet wide. That’s a minimal estimation since it’s hard to tell how tall the plants might be if they weren’t weighed down by humongous orbs. I couldn’t get through that green jungle without playing a contortionist game.

My visiting mother explored the maze and discovered scores of ready- to-pick tomatoes. Other than the fun of digging hills of potatoes, I don’t think there’s much my mom likes better than finding every ripe tomato on eight very crowded, over-grown plants. She turned into a tomato General Patton as she stood outside the fenced garden and directed the placement of my feet and hands so I could pluck every mature fruit she’d spied. 

           

“More to the left, down a few more inches, don’t step too hard with your right foot, stretch, can’t you see it, oh look, there’s a great big one on  the other side of that plant, watch out, you’re bending that branch, oh can you get all four of those and pass them to me….”

I decided I was playing garden “Twister.” My limbs knotted so I barely kept my balance. However, in the real Hasbro game, you don’t have to worry about destroying producing tomato plants. The worst you can do is bruise a fellow player or black an eye.

           

By the time I followed all Mom’s directions, we’d filled a five-gallon bucket two days in a row. Taking our harvested trophies into the house, we rinsed, blanched, peeled, and quartered them until I had six  large freezer bags of ready-to-turn-into-salsa frozen tomatoes. I had to recover from that spine-twisting garden game before I could lift the jar-filled canner from the hot stove.  

Pests Everywhere You Go

It’s the time when heat and pests aggravate the best of gardeners. It’s hard to keep tomatoes setting fruit when days and nights break record temperatures. To compound matters, grasshoppers and tomato hornworms appear and gnaw tender fruits, leaves, and stems to little nubbins. Plains green thumbs frequently face daunting challenges. So do horticulturists everywhere, I’ve learned.

Trying something new, I experimented with a high altitude garden in the Rockies. Of course, that means inhaling thinner air, but cool mornings and nights compensate for short breath. Despite planting later and facing shorter harvest dates, I sweat less and face fewer pests. Or so I thought.

 No one told me about picket pins, Wyoming rodents that love cruciferous veggies. Since this is an experiment, I rented a community garden plot. I figured I’d learn from locals used to the altitude and temperatures. My 8 x 4 foot raised bed came filled with fertile soil just waiting for me to show up with trowel and seeds. In no time, tidy rows of kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions absorbed soil nutrients, spring rains, and sunshine. I patted myself on the back, thinking my mountain garden would escape difficulties I’d faced back home.

Once sun warmed the earth in this raised bed, greens grew thick and plentifully. In no time, we enjoyed fresh spinach and lettuce, crisp radishes, and crunchy onions. It was lovely to harvest veggies that didn’t have a single beetle or grasshopper bite taken out of them. My pleasure didn’t last long.

Within days, something had nibbled away at kale and kohlrabi planted near the garden’s edge. I looked for insect droppings but found none. A high fence around the garden prevented trespassing deer so I couldn’t imagine what devoured my dream harvest. It was certainly healthy because it consumed entire rows of healthful greens.

Finally, I caught the thieves. Bigger than chipmunks but smaller than prairie dogs, they were speedy rodents. I learned they’re ground squirrels that natives call picket pins because of their tendency to stand up straight outside their holes , looking like stakes that keep a horse from straying. They also really like cruciferous vegetables.

A fellow gardener lost her cabbage plants to the hungry hordes. Yes, hordes. These creatures reproduce like rabbits so scores of them call the hillside near our fenced plot home. While deer can’t leap over the ten-foot fence, these intruders have no trouble sneaking between posts or under gates. I caught one perched on the wooden edge framing my rented garden. He unhurriedly nibbled what was left of my last kohlrabi plant before scampering out of reach. I swear he winked when he left.

Unconcerned with his human visitor, he didn’t run until I swung a canvas garden bag his direction. Ironically, this guy and his buddies have done far more damage than any grasshoppers or hornworms that visited my Kansas gardens. The verdict is still out about exchanging high plains planting for mountain tilling. What I have figured out is that no matter where vegetables grow, there’s a pest waiting to snatch them from my plate.

Weaving Past and Present

Articles and activities celebrating the 150 anniversary of Hancock’s War and the development of both Ft. Hays and Hays City have dominated the media. Those living in temperature controlled homes and driving vehicles down paved roads and highways easily forget what this region was like 1800 months ago. If you want to peek at prairie life then, read letters Dr. Theophilus H. Turner sent from Fort Wallace in 1867. To do so, link to Kenneth Almy’s journal article, Autumn 1987 Kansas History http://kshs.org/publicat/history/1987autumn_almy.pdf.

Dr. Turner was an easterner who served as a medical doctor during the Civil War. After mustering out in 1865, Theophilus re-enlisted in the army and found himself stationed on the frontier at Ft. Wallace, which is near Kansas/Colorado border. Little except the cemetery of that fort still exists, but pictures and drawings reveal a hospital, officers’ quarters, stables, supply, and administrative buildings. It was likely the most developed community on the plains between Fort Hays and Denver.

Dr. Turner, or Thof as family and friends knew him, relished life on the prairie. He enjoyed hunting and wrote that he’d hunted buffalo, ducks, and geese soon after his arrival. His early education prepared him to observe life beyond civilization. He remarks on the differences between white and native hunting practices. He remarks on the white’s wastefulness. In a letter to his brother, he explains three Indians spent the night with him and other officers in their quarters. He notes his guests were mystified by photographs, especially of people staying in the barracks with them. He commented, “a photography establishment among them would be a paying institution.”

Not only did he enjoy hunting and studying native culture, local geology intrigued him. Despite bad weather and Indian danger, Thof and Scout William Comstock rode over the country, noting landscape features and discovering marine fossils. One of these finds near nearby McCallaster Butte in what is now Logan County later fueled heated public disagreements between famed paleontologists. E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh.

Dr. Cope determined that Thof’s dragon, the 40-foot sea creature Turner and Comstock recovered, was an Elasmosaurus platyurus. When he assembled bones Turner found north of Ft. Wallace and sent to him, he mistakenly determined this was a long-tailed, short-necked creature. Marsh, his competitive colleague, corrected him, which led to the virulent disputes that constituted the infamous Bone Wars.

Unfortunately, Theophilus’s life ended soon after he retrieved and shared his ancient sea creature. He died at Ft. Wallace of acute gastritis in 1869. Before his death, he and Dr. Cope corresponded frequently. Fortunately, someone discovered those long missing letters as well as the ones Turner wrote to his family in time to enhance the Academy of Natural Sciences 1986 Discovering Dinosaurs Exhibit.

Currently, a group of local historians is filming a documentary about Dr. Turner and his life at Fort Wallace. Interested readers can keep up with their progress on the Facebook page, Thof’s Dragon. It weaves history and science from the past into the present, forming part of the tapestry we call Kansas.