Monday, May 23, 2011

Tomato Transport

Tomato seedlings wrapped in newspaper for protection, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn





























You have to get creative if you want your tomato seedlings to survive a bike ride on Brooklyn's streets down to the community garden at Floyd Bennett. Luckily, Joe came up with the solution of wrapping them in newspaper like a florist so they wouldn't get too bashed around in my paniers. It worked this time. In a couple of months we'll see if we can get those Brandywines home intact too. I'll usually wrap them in a shirt or newspaper or whatever I have so they don't get too smashed up during the ride, but inevitably some become the victims of a new york city street pothole or crack. Of course on a larger scale, the challenges of transporting produce and the solutions that industrial agriculture have come up with have had enormous impacts on the vegetables we eat today, and what they look, feel and taste like. The difficulty of transportation is not the only reason those tasty Brandywines aren't the staple of every supermarket, but it's one of them. All the more reason to grow them close to home.

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