updates from Minneapolis

[mellowtigger]

Here's something a little more meaningful than yesterday's post.

Today, while I was waiting for the micro-route bus to pick me up outside of the big local grocery store, I overheard some guys standing in front of the store saying, "All shifts are 10 hours now." I never did learn what employer or work they were talking about, but I'm not really sure it matters. I just thought my usual, dismissive "Capitalism ruins everybody's lives" and continued waiting for my bus ride. That thought followed recent news that shelters keep seeing more people needing help... even while homeless camp evictions continue.

This year's summer drought and late heat has messed up the schedule for some plants. Walking to the local asian grocery store yesterday, I saw tomato plants with green fruits still on them, and now we have a chance for snow. Even the trees are behind schedule. We're in the last part of the state to see fall colors this year. Even southern Minnesota saw peak colors before us here in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

See photos of a hornet nest, trees turning colors, and more...

The trees on my block are just beginning to change. Here's a photo of the tree in my front yard. In the middle of it, you can easily see a large hornet nest. A few months back, I caught only a glimpse of it and thought it was a bee hive at first glance, with that classic acorn shape. I emailed the University Of Minnesota Bee Squad about it, and they said, "Not invasive, and considered beneficial insects. If they are not bothering you (and they shouldn't as long as you don't work/ play directly in front of their nest entrance) they will die off after a few hard frosts." I figure that a pollinator is a pollinator, and they're welcome here if they don't hurt people.

I might as well throw in here the photo of my back yard. This is the neighbor's box elder tree after the large limb was cut off that kept throwing branches into my electrical line. It's good to not have it pressing down so hard on my power line. I no longer worry about high winds in a storm causing me to lose power. I do, however, now have bright lights from the back neighbor's lights shining in my bedroom window at night. That's a fine tradeoff, though.

The K-Mart burned this morning. By "the" K-Mart, I don't mean any store near me. Instead, it's the troublesome property that blocked traffic on a major road in south Minneapolis. Everyone who ever tried to drive down Nicollet in south Minneapolis would know it as, "Oh, that K-Mart." Now that the K-Mart store chain is out of business, the city even took community feedback for redesign options ("We don't want to make the same mistake that we made in the 1970s.") for that part of the city. Now that it can be bulldozed, I expect that the city will build a new street through there instead of the clunky detour around that block.

Closer to home, there were lots of fire trucks here 3 weeks ago (Sept 29) when a house on the corner burned. That house has been empty for at least a few weeks already, so the start of the fire could have been anything. There are a lot of vacant houses here in north Minneapolis. This fire was different from the one at the other end of the block that hurt 3 firefighters. I don't remember seeing any news stories about this one, so I'll just show the photo I took of about half the emergency vehicles that showed up.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

That's totally normal for tomatoes.

[mellowtigger]

Yes, they typically need a long grow season. They usually love the heat, but people need to be picky about which variety of tomato they choose, so they get one that can finish growing before snow arrives. I don't know tomatoes well enough to recognize the ones I saw in a few yards this week. (I lost mine as sprouts during the stressful job-training season.)

[bitterlawngnome]

Determinate and indeterminate. Determinates grow to a certain size, put out a flush of fruit, and then more or less die off. Indeterminates just keep on growing and fruiting until they're frozen - the ancestral specie includes biennial and perennial populations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_pimpinellifolium ... if you're interested in more detail, https://journals.biologists.com/dev/article/125/11/1979/39820/The-SELF-PRUNING-gene-of-tomato-regulates - the SP gene is one of two recessive alleles which generally disappears if an F1 plant is allowed to set seed. Determinate varieties are bred with field cultivation and shipping (thicker shins) in mind - one of the innovations that lead to Heinz flourishing was the development of a determinate tomato that would crop reliably in the northern states; they are still leaders in breeding for industrial processing - https://www.heinzseed.com

Most of the beefsteak and other heirloom varieties are indeterminate or will be at F2. You wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper (to keep them from dehydrating) and keep them in a box with an apple. Or there are bazillions of recipes for using up the green tomatoes (fried, chutney, relish, jam, pies, salsa, etc etc). One might choose deliberately to grow indeterminate varieties because they are generally more delicious.

[mellowtigger]

I didn't know about the recessive alleles or the Heinz history. That's fascinating. :) Thanks! And I tried some fried green tomatoes once from my garden, many years ago. I didn't know anything else about them except the movie name. They weren't bad at all. I'd certainly do it again, if I didn't find ripe tomatoes better. I only ever grow them for use in salsas or cherry tomatoes for eating whole.

[bitterlawngnome]

I find the history of ag crops fascinating, it's so tightly bound up with how we feed ourselves etc. and yet hardly anyone knows anything about it. Most of the varieties in cultivation are the work of not just a few companies but a small handful of people (tiny, compared to the importance of their work). But you never hear their names.

[kathmandu]

Your fall colors look about like ours, and I'm further south and closer to a coast than you. So it does seem late.