There is an unofficial, but very competitive race where I live in western Pennsylvania. For home gardeners, it is the race for the first home-grown ripe tomato. The goal is to have your first ripe tomato by July 4th and, of course, bragging rights with all the other neighbors. The first person to harvest that beauty is sure to post a picture on social media and expound on the loveliness of that first ripe tomato.
Many of us will do what we can to have the early tomato. We might gauge the weather and decide to risk it and plant early. We have different tricks to warm up the plant in the late spring and early summer to encourage it to grow more quickly. Varieties like "Early Girl" and "July Fourth" are planted, all promising to be early in production.
I do have to say that most years, in fact, almost every year, the ripe tomato by the Fourth of July is not to be. Most years, the tomatoes don't begin to ripen until late July. Yet, when the time comes, it is typically a bumper crop of ripe tomatoes.
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