2024 Leap Year Of The BLT!

[karstopography]

@Cornelius_Gotchberg Bay City is 37 driving miles from my place, almost due west, zone 9b. Bay City is the county seat of Matagorda county. Biggest business/employer there is the nuke power plant. There’s a big steel pipe manufacturing facility there also. Rice farming, Cattle…

The Bay City High School Football Team, the Black Cats, that’s their mascot, were much feared by our high school football team back in the day, the Brazoswood Buccaneers, as even though Bay City had a smaller enrollment, they were extra good in football.

I bet they like BLTs too.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Bay City is 37 driving miles from my place, almost due west, zone 9b.

ERRATUM: Four (4) Hardiness Zones away.

FWIW, I spent half of 1976 living in a farmer's small cottage on the Harris County (north) side of West Fuqua Road and traveled the Lone Star State for Northrup King Garden Seeds/retail division from Texarkana to Nacodoches to Sulphur Springs to Amarillo to San Angelo to Pecos to El Paso to Eagle Pass to Laredo to Brownsville to Freer to Corpus to Victoria to Pasadena to Orange (and New Braunfels & Paris) and a mess of other towns in between.

The Gotch

[karstopography]

Bay City is 37 driving miles from my place, almost due west, zone 9b.

ERRATUM: Four (4) Hardiness Zones away.

FWIW, I spent half of 1976 living in a farmer's small cottage on the Harris County (north) side of West Fuqua Road and traveled the Lone Star State for Northrup King Garden Seeds/retail division from Texarkana to Nacodoches to Sulphur Springs to Amarillo to San Angelo to Pecos to El Paso to Eagle Pass to Laredo to Brownsville to Freer to Corpus to Victoria to Pasadena to Orange (and New Braunfels & Paris) and a mess of other towns in between.

The Gotch

That’s a lot of driving. Probably saw a few cattle and oil fields during those drives. There would be scores of giant wind turbines to be seen these days on much that route.

West Fuqua is all urban now. West Fuqua, the one I’m familiar with, runs east west between Almeda road on the east and Fondren on the west. My wife as a child lived just a few blocks north of W. Fuqua up Hiram Clarke until 1971. They moved to Sugarland in 1971. W. Fuqua, anything along that, isn’t necessarily the best area these days.

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Back to BLTs,
My Bella Rosa tomatoes have broken color, several of them. I decided to bring three inside to continue to ripen and leave the rest for now out on the vine. These are all between 4 and 5 ounces. If they are any notch in flavor above a store bought tomato then I consider it a victory.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

1st OFFICIAL Monday Morning BLT Brunch (last week's was on Wednesday) of the 2024 Leap Year Of The BLT!-358 days left:
The Subject:

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After Applied @Uncle_Feist Prep Technique:

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Now do these:

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Or these (note clean cut shininess and juice!) look like Red Balls or Cardboard?

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Welcome To Delicious!:

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The Gotch

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Day 15 of 2024 Leap Year Of The BLT!, 351 remain:

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The Gotch

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Offseason sliced Tomato, ala @Tormato:

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The Gotch

[karstopography]

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I think the most ripe of these Bella Rosa harvested over the last week or so are about a week away from being BLT worthy. But, every day an few are picking up a little more color. I hope they are at least sandwich worthy even if they aren’t prime season tomato time good enough to eat as a standalone item. I bought 24 ounces of Wright’s thick sliced hickory smoked bacon so I’m ready.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Day 22 of 2024 Leap Year Of The BLT!; 344 left.
Kickoff:

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Halftime:

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End Zone:

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The Gotch

[karstopography]

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@Cornelius_Gotchberg beautiful! What’s the bread am I seeing?

Meanwhile, 1,188 driving miles to the south and west, my first homemade BLT of 2024 is in the works. A couple of these bella rosa tomatoes are getting close. I have little gem lettuce available in the garden and the cowgirl daughter that also loves to bake is making a rosemary and garlic sourdough loaf.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@karstopography; them there are rounding nicely into shape, keep us in the loop!

Marble Rye and Greek Flatbread.

Anywho, to paraphrase Charley in Death Of A Salesman:

"He’s a Tomato Rancher way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine . . . A BLT LUVer is got to dream, boy."

The Gotch

[AKgardener]

I’m not sure how long it will take this gangolf tomato plant but so far I have 10!tomato growing hopefully by mid February I’ll be able to finally hsve a home grown mater sandwich with homemade bread

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@AKgardener Picture/s?

The Gotch

[AKgardener]

I topped it just because it was a tester plant but it had 3 flower clusters I lost the top ones but found a new clusters growing I have no idea how big the maters get but this plant does great indoors started on 11/18

[Mark_Thompson]

@AKgardener Haughty laugh look at the hoi palloi in the lower 48 eating their storebought tomato BLTs!

Jk, I don’t want to jinx you, but excellent work doing the year round thing in the great white north!

[Mark_Thompson]

So last week I went down to the local credit union. Luckily property values are still strong in my area, and I’m packing a credit score about as hefty as my weight (I round both to 195) so they gave me a Home Equity Loan. This allowed me to buy three whole heads of lettuce.

So now The Gotch can zoom in all he wants, this BLT is beyond reproach! The fruit is Kitten Paws Pink, which he will probably try to claim as an old Wesconsin variety, but @bower won’t let him get away with that shameless cultural appropriation. This one absolutely hit the spot!

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[AKgardener]

I will always keep trying the year round thing my husband just got a tractor so it’s time for a year round greenhouse haha..it’s this one is good I’ll restart it

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

So now The Gotch can zoom in all he wants, this BLT is beyond reproach!

Sheesh! Either you's give The Gotch too much credit, or not quite enough (care to guess which way he's leaning...?)

You's can't raise lettuce in any of them there containers?

The Gotch

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@Mark_Thompson; should add that there's a NICE shade of red, twixt a Scarlet and a Blood; from where I'm sittin', leastways.

Not unlike a coupla WESconsin varieties with which I'm familiar...

The Gotch

EDIT: A GOOGLE SEARCH for Kitten Paws Pink Tomatoes turned up...nothin' but actual kitten's paws https://www.google.com/search?q=kitten+ ... s-wiz#ip=1

What gives.....?

The Gotch

[Tormahto]

I find a Black Kitten Paws in a search, but no Pink.

[Yak54]

You guys are making me crazy cause I don't get my first BLT till the first few days of August and then I'll have SOTW, Dester, Rebel Yell, AGP and Rosovye Krupnye . These should provide BLT's till mid October and I wish I could make it happen sooner but I can't