Think your vegetable garden produced? HA!

Though this weekend in Chicago looks to be near perfect weather-wise, we are nearing the end of the localĀ  vegetable garden season. If you grew anything this summer, you’ll soon pile it onto your kitchen counter and then work really hard to pawn stuff off on neighbors, coworkers, your hairdresser – anyone who eats, really – before it spoils.

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Just be glad you’re not this guy, profiled by the LA Times, who grew 11,000 tomatoes last summer (and he’s expecting 15,000 this summer).

My favorite part of the story is this:
“If you think that growing backyard tomatoes is just that, you’re missing the point,” said Scott Daigre, a garden designer whose Tomatomania seedling sale has become an intensely awaited kickoff to the season. “It’s a search for the past, a romantic search for a memory, a hope of reliving a childhood experience, a great dinner.”

Like Bad Theater

Another day, another food-related crime.

(Insert Dragnet music here)

I’ll lead with this quote from the end of an article I read in the Fond Du Lac Reporter, via obscurestore.com: Officers reported that both husband and wife appeared intoxicated.

It seems that a 48-year-old woman was charged with reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and misdemeanor battery because she went after her husband with some tomatoes and a knife (at least that’s what he says. She claims he fell off a lawn chair while drunk).

The article continues, She was ordered to stay out of taverns and possess no weapons.

According to police and news reports, the victim said his wife had him on the floor and repeatedly hit him and possibly stabbed him with a knife as she made slashing motions at him, he told authorities. (The victim) said he begged his wife not to kill him and was struck in the face with large numbers of tomatoes, the complaint stated. Sheriff’s officers reported tomatoes were crushed “everywhere” in the residence.

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The wife alleges that her husband was ticked off because a drink she made him wasn’t strong enough, and that he started the fight by calling her names and hitting her in the face, according to the complaint.

If convicted of all charges, the wife faces maximum penalties of more than 13 years in prison and $36,000 in fines.