On a warm July morning, a tomato flower can look too small for the job ahead of it. Five yellow petals bend backward around a pointed center. The flower hangs from a hairy green stem, facing slightly down, while the plant puts most of its visual effort into leaves and swelling fruit. Then a bumblebee arrives, grips the yellow cone,…
tomatoes
A split tomato has a disappointing kind of drama. Yesterday it was almost perfect, heavy on the vine and beginning to color. Then a night of rain passes through, the garden smells rich and washed, and the tomato is suddenly open along one side, its skin pulled apart like a seam that could not hold. It can feel like rot,…

