Hands Off My Tomatoes, Al!

From today's Washington Post (our italics):

Where's the Beefsteak?
Searing Summer Heat Stresses Tomato Plants

Is it getting tougher to raise a decent tomato?

Many backyard tomato growers are reporting a particularly poor showing this year, with scrawny, diseased vines and pathetic harvests.

Megan Gardner, a Virginia Cooperative Extension horticulturist and tomato troubleshooter, has heard two telling comments in her travels in Virginia's Middle Peninsula: Folks complain "that nobody has offered them extra tomatoes this year," she said. "When those who have extra tomatoes gave them away, everyone took them."

Tomatoes fail for a host of reasons, some in the gardener's control, others not. One theory is that high heat and related tomato stress this summer are another product of global warming.

Another theory is that the old lady next door, a well-known witch, tried to hex our cat, missed, and hit the Better Boys by mistake. Then there are those who hold with the Zionist Tomato Ray theory.

We ourselves have enjoyed a bountiful crop of excellent tomatoes, perhaps by planting them at a safe distance from the Algore Greenhouse Gasbag Machine.