Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for September 30, 2020

Even the grocery store at which I work has some organic-labeled items.

This was Hank Hill’s reaction to organically-grown tomatoes as well. ✨

I agree Tiff, nothin’ like a tomato from my garden.

Vine ripe and sweet, Just like Tiffany, 8^ )

Why go to a Supermarket? Because you can’t grow all that stuff all year ‘round! That’s why!

It may not be “farm fresh…” but it’s here… NOW!

Ohmygaw! Tiffany discovered “farm fresh” – a future career?

I do not look forward to eating tomatos I don’t grow. The flavor can’t compare!

Desdemona is a regular Horticultural expert.

Reminds me of those old radio mystery stories where the girls were hot, and their skirts were tight, and some seedy private detective always referred to them as “tomatoes.”

Mmmm, cherry tomatoes are the best.

I see Tiffany keeping ABREST of the situation.

That tomatoes is not ready to be pick.

Wait until Dez shows Tiff a tomato horn worm! ;-)

Because you get results like that

Dang, GE. You put her in a dress that’s really a top. You put a squiggly noodle in her hair that makes no sense. You have Dez giving her Dez preschool lectures. Now the woman apparently doesn’t know a cherry tomato when she sees one. Ho hum.

Is it me or has she lost a few pounds?

The only good tomatoes are home grown. You could play baseball with the ones you find in the grocery stores.

Store bought tomatoes = red water balloons.

Yeah- no. Some home-grown stuff can be extremely tasty, but it’s by no means guaranteed. The tomatoes that my wife has managed to grow during the pandemic have uniformly looked delicious but been almost devoid of actual flavour. She keeps eating them; it makes her happy. I, for my part, stick to the local supermarket produce.

It looks like Dez and Tiff are hitting it off. Never mind a love interest for Tiff, she just got a new BFF. Hope Tiff picks up some of Dezs’ wisdom.

Haven’t heard the term supermarket in a long time.

I believe the scientific name is “Freshgrownicus Delicii.”

Annnnnd…. Tiffany’s dress is even SHORTER. If Greg Evans had performed this maneuver with Tiffany’s neckline, it would currently be down to her navel!

Hate supermarket tomatoes, they taste like wax. I worked in agriculture. A fair number of commercial tomatoes are sprayed with a hormone that turns them red. Unless 100% organic, you may be eating a green tomato that’s merely “dyed” to look red.

Tomorrow’s use to have a lot of flavor. But then they started to modify the tomatoes to increase their shelf life and make them less vulnerable to insects. As a result they bread a lot of the flavor out. That why heirloom tomato’s taste so good

Tiff, you’re right, a fresh cherry tomato still warm from the afternoon Sun is amazing.

Only thing better is to plant the seeds yourself, watch them sprout in your window box, transplant them carefully to your garden, water them, protect the tender plants from predators, pick off bugs eating the leaves, watch butterflies flit around the small blossoms, see the blossoms turn into growing green marbles, see the green balls redeem and become slightly soft, and THEN pick and bite a tomato warm from the sun. A feeling of pride and gratitude mixed in with the bright taste.

I brought real home grown strawberries to my doctor’s office and people were amazed. They had never had a real strawberry only those plastic supermarket ones.

I love Dez more and more♡♡♡! Her smiling, happy and satisfied face in the last panel is a true image of beauty and happiness ♡. Will Tiffany start gardening on her own? It would certainly be interesting to see.

Now watch. Tiff gets all excited about the garden and starts talking about changing her degree and her father has a fit hearing that her daughter isn’t going to be Ms. Socialite well to do like the Hilton family

I do not like the chunky Tiff.

That is some character depth for a cartoon….when we are educated by a character being educated…that is a good story….stringing it together for years..that’s genius.

Good ol Dez, she didn’t argue with Tiffany, she just let Tiffany taste the difference between home grown and store bought. Dez is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in this comic strip.

Growing tomatoes is definitely not about saving money, ditto blueberries, figs, strawberries, persimmons, …

I’m with Tiff on this one! I’ve tried to grow zucchini THREE TIMES and got nothing but a pretty yellow flower…tried asparagus; waited 4 months just to get a 4 ft tall fringy thing…they make grocery stores just for people like me

Florida has a law that tomatoes exported from the state have to be round and smooth. Not tasty. They don’t care about the taste, they care about what they look like.

Homegrown is better!!!! But we get lots of local produce from our supermarket as well.

She’s right Nonsupermarketus Tomatoes are the best.

Dez’s gardening has become a boring story.

There is absolutely nothing in the world like freshly picked tomatoes. ;-)

So will Tiffany start a healthy eating phase and lose weight?

“…not one of those cardboard varieties they strip mine in Texas” (or words to that effect) — Garrison Keillor (Tomato Butt)

My ability as a gardener would leave a mouse starving. However one year I grew a bumper crop of the sweetest cherry tomatoes that sprang up from the corner of my compost bin. The next year I got several pumpkins from the same place that took over a portion of my yard.Too bad I had to leave.

This is SO TRUE!!! I had my very first garden this year (I’m 51 TODAY) and the tomatoes were EXTRAORDINARY! I could not believe how amazing they were. Sadly, because I didn’t stake them, they grew too tall, fell over and didn’t produce too many. But the ones we DID get, OMG!!! I will certainly stake them next year…

Okay, Dez grows and harvests the veggies. TJ makes delicious recipes using the good veggies. Now I see Tiff becoming a media influencer doing Youtube videos. Is this how she goes into business?

I haven’t seen Tiff actually helping Dez so far, but maybe it has happened off-screen?

Rock and roll, he gave you all the best years of his life.

Singer Mac Davis has passed away, at the age of 78.

R.I.P.

Ain’t nothin’ in the world that I like better

Than bacon & lettuce & home grown tomatoes

Up in the mornin’ out in the garden

Get you a ripe one don’t get a hard one

Amazing the number and variety of comments about tomatoes, or is it tomaatoes? I don’t have the diacritical on my keyboard. In the supermarkets I go to, even Wal-Mart, you can get all kinds of tomatoes, from beefsteak slicers (which usually don’t have a lot of flavor) to tart cherry tomatoes (which do), but that was not the point of the panels. Tiffany is being reminded or introduced to the simplicity of nature, by an “Earth Mother” type of person. Hopefully it will help Tiffany in her developing of a fuller, more authentic character.

15 years ago close friends, who were moving, asked us to harvest tomatoes they grew in an outdoor hot tub. When I got done I reeked fresh garden tomatoes. Stopped at a local Bashas grocery store in Catalina AZ. The produce manager asked me to fondle their tomatoes on display so they would sell faster.

I grew up eating fruits and vegetables fresh from the garden. I have never had a good tomato or cantaloupe since I moved out.

Scoff if you wish. But Tiff is learning a Heck of a lot more this week from Dez than she ever did in an entire semester of Dr. Fabbi’s class.

Hopefully Dez will sell some of the harvest at the local farmers market and donate the proceeds to the poor.

And if Tiff accompanies her, while wearing that dress, those veggies should sell out faster than Nvidia RTX 3080 cards. ;)

Dez is the guardian of the garden.

“I fertilize them with my own poop, Tiff.”

Good Grief! Picky, picky, picky!!!

Nice that Tiff sees the difference in fresh off the vine produce. Like Dez’s comment. Cute. ;-) My grands eat more than they harvest, asparagus especially.

Anybody ever read: Hard Time Hard Tomato’s

Tiffs world is opening

Just don’t grow more than one zucchini plant unless you have a lot of use for it. When you have made as much zucchini bread and other recipes as you ever want to, you have to find something to do with the rest. Your neighbors and co-workers will happily accept some…at first. You leave some in the office break room, where it sits untouched. Finally, it ends on the compost heap.

A hundred years ago a tomato was a hard lumpy fruit that many thought was poisonous. Generations of gardeners turned them into the succulent salad ingredient they are today.

Just wait ‘till Tiff accidentally steps in Dez’ benjo ditch…

Tiffany has a point. Gardening is much, much work for relatively modest yield more often than not. I understand the gratification factor, but that’s for those who strive for that sort of thing. On the other hand, some of us are indeed content to head to the store and purchase the fruits of their labors. It’s all good.

It is a grape tomato. I used to grow them. They are better than cherry tomatoes.

If you work enough Horse Manure into the soil before planting, you get amazing Nonsupermarketus Tomatoes.

I kind of wonder when or if this story is going to bend back to TJ and his cooking the Ferrall house? I think I’ve had enough of Gardening 101

tomorrow: more salad!!!

Has Tiffany’s upbringing been so deprived that she has never tasted a fresh, homegrown tomato (or other produce, fruit or vegetable) before? How sad. But, better late than never; thank you, Dez!

Where does Tiffany think the supermarkets get…?

Never mind.

The only background information on Dez is that she is from New York and is attending Mooney University with an undeclared major.

https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2014/08/22

As a kid, I, my siblings, and our cousins would play in our grandmother’s yard all summer. If we got hungry, we’d hit up the garden, grabbing fresh, sun-warmed tomatoes. We’d wipe them off on our shirts, and sit under her pecan trees, letting the juice run down our chins. We’d wash them down with ice cold water, straight from the hand pump. If we wanted something sweet, mulberries, pears, and blackberries were more than abundant.Wonderful times, and memories.

I hate tomatoes. They don’t like me much either. I try to grow them for my wife but some fungus has gotten into my soil and they blight year after year. When I first moved here they were easy to grow.