Tomato Plants Delivered to you!
- Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter!
And the moral of the story is, growing tomatoes can change your life.
I honestly think the story behind the creation of this ludicrous tomato is more impressive than the tomato itself. It's 1930, and the depression is looming, the Great Wall Street crash of 1929 is still fresh. Charlie, who has no idea how to breed a tomato, begins a process which would be considered rather unorthodox and he succeeds. Charlie is just a regular mechanic with his workshop based at the bottom of a large mountain. He earns the nickname Radiator Charlie due to the number of trucks that overheat and end up returning to his workshop for radiator repairs. So for several years, he plants Italian and English varieties of beefsteaks in a circle with German Johnson in the centre, taking a baby syringe he pollinates German Johnson flowers with the surrounding types. Charlie saves the seeds from the crosses and repeats again yearly. Finally, he gets a result he is happy with, and he sells plants for $1.00, so if we take inflation into account, Charlie is selling one plant for approximately $15.00. People come for miles to purchase the plants as news spread of their excellence and wham Mr Marshall Cletis Byles of Logan West Virginia has paid off his 6,000 dollar mortgage in the heat of one of the worst depressions ever.
Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate
Charlie Scott's Wartime Italian. In honor of history and mystery.
Oh to be able to sit down with Charlie Scott? To ask about the moment, he first laid eyes on this fascinating tomato while away serving on the front lines during WWII. Last year I searched the web for a picture and found nothing. So I took it upon myself to grow this beauty and solve the mystery, see what captivated Charlie. And dam, I know why he popped them seeds into a pair of socks and brought them on home from Italy. It tastes sweet, and tart, more than I would imagine and its unusual pink streaks made it so much more enjoyable. Its shape reminded me of a fat-bottomed woman, so shapely, feminine. It looks like no Roma I have ever seen before. Whatever the reason it enchanted Charlie enough to take the time to put the seeds away safely until he could return home to his patch of earth in New Zealand.
Maybe a kind stranger made him an unforgettable meal with it that reminded him of home. Maybe carrying those seeds kept him sane, they were rescuing him while he was saving them. I'm growing this tomato every year, so I can pick it and say, "Dam Charlie it's a beauty, I hope when you returned home someone was waiting to kiss you over the garden gate".They shall grow not old, as we that are left
grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years
condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the
morning
We will remember them.
