Aussie Tomatoes

So, I'm temporarily out of work due to an injury that is healing quickly. We're been looking forward to seas calm enough to do something in; I would very much like a soak in the sea. Would like some more rain.... we got a fraction of an inch yesterday. Sooooooo, I think, I'll go fool with the tomatoes.

Our tomatoes really liked the recent cool weather, which kind of irritated me, as they are supposed to be an open-pollinated Australian variety which allegedly is heat-resistant and doesn't require a lot of water. I did four plantings over as many weeks of these things and blaaaah, they almost looked dead. Then, we get our six days of winter and even the tomato bush that I thought was dead and done popped out six.

The main gaggle of plants are doing GREAT! Those damn things, though...... they just have no discipline at ALL. I gave them woven wire mesh cages to climb up and even helped wrap the bastiches, but Nooooo, they had to all bend down to the ground and run like it was some sorta mutant cucumber or something. No kidding, these tomatoes will NOT! climb worth beans. I think they want to live upside-down, and I'd plant them like that, except it would piss me off to have them shoot down six feet and then start running the ground AGAIN!

I made a lattice framework last month-- lovely thing, very rustic, and would've looked grand with tomatoes popping plumply and proud out of the squares. I think THAT'S why the damned things wouldn't set fruit -- they were expending too much energy outrunning .... ME! Once they got back to the ground and wandered for a bit..... presto! Bunches of healthy-sized tomatoes. I was even *cough* augmenting the self-pollination (but is it still self-pollination, if I participate? NEVERmind.)

So, apparently, I have the only tomatoes on the island that want to go on a frickin' walkabout. Dill dinkum me, I've spent the last day still trying to corral the damn things, at least keep them off the walking paths.

They are evil. They've already tried to trip me twice today. Billabong bastards. I can't wait to eat them.

reply to post by argentus


It sounds like those damned tomatoes have it in for you.

Don't trust em! Kill them all just to be safe.
They may be poisonous. Give them to an enemy instead.

reply to post by argentus


Your problem was in choosing an Australian variety.

See, in Australia, everything is out to kill you and the tomatoes have learned over time that to survive, they must stay low to the ground so as not to be seen, and to run away in every direction to keep the species alive.

Perhaps you will choose your fruit more wisely next time and get something from a region where the plants don't have to adapt for survival in such a fashion..

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


that has merit! I'm sure there's a relative or two whom I might 'test' the tomatoes with.



reply to post by tribewilder


Now I see the flaw in my thinking. I thought that being an Aussie variety, that they'd be hardy and resistant to everything. I didn't realize that meant me also. I fully expect to see them crawling in the back door, waiting for us to go to sleep. Good thing I sleep with a machette close by. I will watch them closely. I hope they don't start an uprising with the cukes, that could be bad.

No not upside down tomato plants, have seen those down the local garden center and said to my better half "they must be Aussie ones" being upside down an all

well dodgy tomato plant..

reply to post by argentus




There ya go! Maybe a politician or two as well.

is this really the kind of stuff someone should write on ats about???....you make me laugh!