Ugly Tomatoes and TMI

[AlittleSalt]

Before gardening, a few years back, for 40+ years, I had this picture stuck in my head that tomatoes have a few qualities:

#1. They are Red

They are smooth and perfectly round or egg shaped, but mostly round.
.
They are sort of juicy and most are tasteless.

Those sold, "On the Vine" smelled so good, but still had no taste even though they cost too much.

And in some cases, they tasted like some sort of cleaning solution.

Yes, I grew up eating supermarket tomatoes. I was too busy working and not caring to learn that there were better options. I have noticed that people of all ages that I associate with have grown up the same way.

Early today, I looked online at the, "Old German" tomatoes. I have 4 plants planted for our fall garden that I have grown from seed for the first time. I have taken care of them as if I were their over-protective-father without a clue as to expect from them. I gave up and looked online this morning. The pictures of Old German tomatoes I looked up today showed a twisted, large, yellowish, ugly tomato. My first instinctive thought was: "(Superlative", that is UGLY!") Then, I got it.

What I grew up learning or understanding isn't always right or fair. We/I have to remember to keep learning...it does not matter how old we are or how many times we experience things. Sometimes, we learn by society instead of what is real. I'm hoping that those ugly tomatoes taste great. After all, I've been babying them since July 1.

I built special cages to protect them from grasshoppers. The cages are only 14" tall and around 7" wide with a cap on top all made of 1/4 inch rabbit mesh. When they grew out of that, I replaced those cages with the 2.5' tall pepper cages just to keep the tomato plants from getting blown to the ground. Then when the high temperatures got to 98F, I put light colored cotton shade covers over the top of those cages. Others I put light colored cotton sheets over T-posts. I talk or breath on the plants daily and water when they need it. I'm trying to garden as I have been parenting and grand-parenting. I want to be the best role model as I can be.

Gardening is my way of combating the nerve diseases I live with 24/7 instead of taking morphine shots 4-times-a-day. My continuous pain level is 8+ if I take the meds or if don't. In 2010, I chose to never take pain meds again. My PCP said I needed to find something to occupy my time while I had it. I chose feeding my loved ones with good healthy food. Over the past 4 years, my health has improved due to healthier eating, positive influence due to gardening?, and no more Morphine shots.

I probably get too compassionate about gardening because of that. If I ever get on your nerves here - tell me.

Are there any tomato varieties you think are just plain ugly?

[Tracydr]

I hope you have an amazing and delicious tomato crop.
I too suffer chronic pain. I have a joint disease and also fractured my neck in 2000. Last year, when the joint disease was at it's worse, I was on 120mg of morphine a day. I did find that the long acting morphine had far less side effects for me than the short acting.
I currently take tramadol and use a topical cream with diclofenac and ketamine in it, among a few other ingredients. The tramadol is pretty mild but I wouldn't be able to stand going without. I do find that if I'm busy with something, and especially if I swim or garden, that my pain is less, both during the activity and after, if I didn't over do it. Yesterday, we drove out to the beach and I swam in the ocean. I was virtually pain free, at least until I climbed back up on hubby's motorcycle, with is pretty hard on my spine.
So, yes, staying busy and active is usually a great way to decrease pain. Although, last year I was stuck in a wheelchair for 6 months, I did find that when I garden, even though I was sitting on the ground, I was almost comfortable, at least while I was actually gardening.
As for ugly tomatoes, I think there is a variety called "ugly". In AZ, I always planted as early as possible to beat the heat and the first tomatoes were often ugly, due to being pollinated while nights were still cool. Some of the dwarfs and Cherokee Purple were pretty homely. They got themselves sorted it with later tomatoes and looked much more attractive.
The only thing that I don't like about severely malformed tomatoes is that they often have a lot of parts that are either core or ripened unevenly so I would have to throw more away than I would do on a perfect tomato. The larger the tomato, it seems like the more this is likely to happen. It's usually caused by two or three blossoms fusing together.

[AlittleSalt]

Tracydr, I thank you for the hoping to have an amazing and delicious tomato crop part.

The chronic pain medicines, I have read, researched, taken prescribed, and even owned an online forum/site about CRPS and RSD. After failed surgeries in 1996 and 1998, and from 2000 - 2010, Pain specialist had me taking Methadone, Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Dilaudid, Morphine, etc.. I took those with 8 Zanaflex pills per day for a decade.

I know that while taking those meds - I could not remember things like my wife's name, so
I made up pet names. I barely walked with a cane and could not go out in public because people scared me.

For a complete decade, I lived like that.

As you have described above, being active does decrease pain levels. It also makes you feel alive again. For me, not taking the pain pills has given me no more brain fog and the short term memory loss is not as bad as it was. But then again, I did forget that there was a thread here already about Ugly Tomatoes that was posted not too long ago. I also forget about things I post here.

Every day can be and usually is a new learning adventure, but it can be a pain as well when you don't remember things you have done so many times before. I make lots of notes and I think I'm getting better.

Gardening is helping because I am active, learning, and retaining Information. I once had a college GPA of 3.51. I want to get back to that level. I want to improve.