As a child growing up in rural Alabama, we always had a
vegetable garden at our house. How I remember the many hours of pulling weeds
and taking water out to the plants. I know at times I would sit there pulling
weeds wishing I could be anywhere else but there. But with the hard work, we
would also reap the rewards. Our table during the summer months would be filled
with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, egg plants, squash, peas and corn during the
summer months from the garden. Nothing could beat coming in and sitting down to
Mama’s cooking on a hot summer day.
When we moved to the Philippines in 2010, I was excited
about having the space to have our own garden. While looking for a place to
live, I always wanted to have room. Not only for the kids to play, but maybe for
a garden as well. We were lucky to find a lot with 1,500 square meters that
would be perfect in my mind for all I thought I would like to do. We were in a
small farming community that had good soil for planting. All it needed was some
good seeds and a little tender loving care.
I had purchased some seeds for planting off Amazon. Being I
was not the farmer my Dad is, I did not pay attention to what kind of seeds I
was purchasing, I just wanted some of those big and juicy tomatoes I had grown
to love. The kind when you slice it, one slice would cover a piece of bread.
You know those big, red, juicy Beefy Boy tomatoes we have in the States! I
purchased my hybrid seeds with a big smile on my face just thinking of those “mayo
and mater” sandwiches which I could soon be enjoying.
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| Friends and family working in the garden. |
How did I forget so easily that WORK was also involved in
all this? Was not it just a few years back in my youth that I had sat there
complaining of sitting in the corn rows pulling weeds? How could it be so hard?
Weeds seem to be able to multiply overnight and take over anything! Pull one
and two more grow!
I am thankful for some helpful friends and family that were
available to help with the gardening chores. Their eyes also were on my prized
“large” tomatoes. I am not sure anyone in the Cagayan Valley of the Philippines
had ever seen such large tomatoes in their life time. That is unless they had
been an OFW working abroad and got to see one in a supermarket outside the
Philippines somewhere. They just could
not be patient long enough though.
I would walk out to check the tomato plants in the evening
and see ones on the vine I knew would make my perfect sandwich. Nice, firm and
green yet, with maybe a hint of red coming on. I had just a few more days to
wait only. Patience is the key. Let it ripen on the vine and then all that
juiciness would fill that tomato just fine.
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| Look Uncle! Fresh green tomatoes! |
The next morning, I was shocked to see not only the tomato I
was so eagerly waiting on to ripen, but most all the tomatoes that were bigger
than a medium sized rock had been removed. There sitting in the bucket were
many half red, some still green tomatoes! Did a storm come through and blow
them off the vine? What had happened? Why were all these tomatoes taken off the
vine so early? It was explained to me that the Filipinos would like to have
them this way and not as a red juicy tomato. Oh the horror as I thought of my “mayo
and mater” sandwich that I would now not get to enjoy.
I quickly looked through the bucket and found the biggest
and reddest tomato I could find. I set it aside to complete the ripening
process as best it could. I would have to enjoy the moment even if it were not
as big, not as juicy and not as red as I had planned on it being.
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| Sorting the goods from the garden to be sold! |
After pulling my lone tomato from the bucket, the quest was
on to find buyers for these stellar green with somewhat reddish tint tomatoes. We plied the roads and trails of the local
Barangay that we live in looking for interested people who were likely to enjoy
these tomatoes. We were met with smiles and laughter and of course some buyers
for the tomatoes brought to them by the Kano (kind term given to an American in
the Philippines)! We were able to sell our tomatoes with ease and our prices
could not be beat. Even being nice at times and throwing in an extra smaller
tomato to boot!
Here is a word of advice on buying seeds for growing a
garden in the Philippines. If you are like me and did not have this knowledge
prior, hybrid seeds are good for only one growing period. They are not able to
reproduce if you take the seeds out and try to regrow them. It was a lesson we
learned the hard way. The next year we toiled the soil, planted the seeds,
pulled the weeds and waited. Although the plants did come up, we never did see
the fruits of our labor. It was a disappointing year for our garden. Maly was
so depressed, she decided flowers and orchids were a better choice of plants.
Will I ever get another juicy “mayo and mater” sandwich in the Philippines?
You can check out our tomato selling adventure on YouTube by
visiting the link below. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to
our channel and come back for more interesting stories from our adventures in
the Cagayan Valley and beyond!
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