It's THEM!

Tomato gardeners are a strange bunch.  We spend hours during the winter planning our gardens, choosing which plants we're going to plant and making our decisions based upon their good points and their bad points. We trade for seeds; we plant them in the perfect medium, and, when the time is right, we plant them in carefully prepared soil.  We hover over them like a hummingbird hovers around a nectar laden flower, wearing a path between each plant.  Then, when we think they are protected against the elements, against all critters, we find plants stripped of leaves, almost denuded.  Tomato gardeners beware!  Hornworm season is upon us.

Hornworms are truly gross & disgusting critters.  Masters of disguise, they are hard to spot when small on the plants.  When large, many times they look like a curled leaf.  They are the perfect shade of tomato green but with a nasty looking spike tail, white stripes and "eyes" down their sides.  And, to make it worse, they are HUGH, like 4" long huge.  I recently found out, when you try to pry them off the plant, they throw their head around, back & forth, and make noise.  Yeah…  noise.  That really grossed me out.  The noise reminds me of the noise that the giant ants make in the cult Sci-Fi flick, "Them".  (How appropriate, giant caterpillars in NM make noises like giant nuclear ants in NM.).

For the past couple of weeks, I've been on hornworm patrol, policing my tomato plants two and three times a day.  Still, I'm finding them.  I have a lovely heirloom tomato that they seem to have a preference for - a Black Russian. These things seem to be ignoring the yellow cherry tomato and the Red German Queen, but they love the black tomato plant!  So, I continue the war against the hornworms, turning over leaves, picking them off and throwing them into the road to become road kill. I also leave the smaller ones in the birdbath for the birds, which readily scarf them up.

I hope that hornworm season ends soon, preferably before my tomato is stripped or before I start screaming, "THEM!  THEM! THEM!!!!"

Baltimore History & Architecture

I'm not an architect, but there is a lot that I admire in old buildings.  Baltimore has a lot of old buildings.  The city has been around in one form or another since the early 1700's and there is only one building that dates back from the 1700's which still exists. The oldest building is a home, the Mount Clare Mansion, which was built in 1760.  It was the home of Charles Carroll, a distant relative of Charles Carroll the signer of the Declaration of Independence.


There are more homes that survive from the 1800's, such as the home of Mary Pickersgill, the seamstress who sewed the American flag which flew over Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore.  Another example is the Basilica, which is located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood.  The Basilica was designed by Benjamin Latrobe and it is the oldest Catholic Cathedral in the United States.  It was constructed between 1806 and 1821 and it was consecrated 31 May 1821. 


Many of the really old buildings are are few & far in between.  Many were destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire (photos link) in February 1904.  One place that survived was the building which used to house the House of Welsh, a noted steak house in Baltimore.  When I was a kid, one of the places that my mom took me for a special treat was the House of Welsh.  Something that I found fascinating about the place was that on the walls of the restaurant, there were pictures of the Great Fire and the damage that it did.  One of the pictures was of that same building and the caption, which was something like, "The only building left."  Here's a bit of trivia for you, on 8 Feb 1904, 35 Western Union telegraph operators start tapping out news of the Great Baltimore Fire from the House of Welsh restaurant, on whose corner of Guilford and Saratoga the last remaining telegraph pole that carried lines in every direction stood. For three days, the operators send out news from the restaurant.   If you want to know more about the fire, please visit the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage Project, Enoch Pratt Free Library (picture above left).  By the way, another fine library in Baltimore is the Peabody Library, part of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, which is part of the Johns Hopkins University (picture above right).  


Baltimore is not a city of buildings that are all alike. It isn't unusual to find a house which looks like a misplaced castle adjoining a building that may have been a warehouse at one time.  The city is quirky and that quirkiness is reflected in the buildings.  That quirkiness is one reason I've always been very fond of the city, regardless of it being my hometown!  I love the incongruities!


Baltimore has many names: Charm City, Monumental City, Bawlmer, Crabtown, etc.  The bench, however, says it all.

Lexington Market - Baltimore, MD

The Lexington Market is where my mom used to shop for fresh produce, fresh butchered meats, eggs, chicken, bakery goods and, of course, fish from Faidley's Seafood Market.  The market is world famous and it was founded in 1782, making it more than 200 years old.  It still occupies the original location upon which it was founded: Lexington Street, between Eutaw and Greene.  I love the place, even if it is located in a not too great section of downtown Baltimore.  It has a wide variety of smells, noises, and people.  It is a great place to people watch.  Because of this, when we were there, we had to go!

The market has changed, but one can still buy fresh killed & butchered meats, chicken, produce and seafood there.  However, in addition to those grocery staples, one can now buy cheese steak sandwiches, smoothies, and a wide variety of other already prepared meals.  We opted for a couple of cheese steaks from the vendor pictured above.  The sandwiches were so large, that neither Rob nor I could finish them!  For about $5, we got 12" sandwiches and an order of french fries.

Here are a couple of other pictures from the market.

Other fine and long time vendors at the market are...

Konstant Peanuts - They sell peanuts that are roasted right there at the market. I think the roaster is on the Eutaw Street side.  I've been eating their peanuts since I was around 5 years old.  There isn't anything like peanuts right out of the roaster.

Polock Johnny's - Another Baltimore institution!  I didn't get a sausage, so I can't say if they are still as good as I remember.  However, what I remember was a great Polish sausage on a potato roll with a great dollop of sauerkraut and mustard.

Regan's Meats - I remember Regan's meats, but my Mom used to buy from Manger's.  As far as I know, Manger's is no longer in operation.  The butchers there were great.  I used to watch them dissect whole quarters of beef into various cuts.  In fact, one of them taught me how to cut & bone meat and also how to select a ham that is low in fat.  Useful skills!

Most of the places where my mom & I shopped are long gone: Stewart's, Hecht's, Hoschild's, Hutzler's, the fishmarket, and others.  It's nice to know that some things, like the market, endure.