This is the kind of story I read the NYT for, really, and the comments.
The "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree angle is great!
And the photo, with the accidental "wretched refuse of your teeming shore" connotation of the (ever more?) hazy Statue of Liberty.
And the little piling with, what, caulk? How'd that get there? Looks new! By NYC standards, that little 4 sq. feet of waterfront property would be worth more than it looks like.
And the fact someone rowed out there to find this little plant and its lone, brilliant fruit. Kramer swimming in the East River doesn't sound so nutty now.
Who knows how it would taste...don't really want to know. I'm with the "let it grow" crowd.
Really, the only plausible explanation is Homer Simpson returned to New York and planted this Tomacco here, as it mirrored growing conditions on the ol' family farm, what with plutonium and God knows what else.
PS Thanks for the "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" mention, one of the great films of all time, one I've been lobbying to replace "It's a Wonderful Life" for must-see Christmastime watching.
Great stuff!
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a scam - cleverly done, but a scam nonetheless
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If a sewage treatment plant puts its outflow in the sun to dry (free soil amendment), the only thing you will find growing are tomato plants. Tough seeds.
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Saw the article and thought of the early Sesame Street bit about A Flower Grows in the City. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kojxgL3nf0Y
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Well done, mother nature!
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For all of you New Yorkers who went gaga over this volunteer tomato plant, I say: Why not try this at home? Tomatoes are very easy to grow. All you need is a pot or other container with drainage holes in the bottom, a base layer of about an inch of small stones, potting soil to fill the container and a young plant.
Not just tomatoes - peppers and many flowers are also simple to grow. As long it gets enough light and water, your plant will do well on a balcony, in a backyard (no matter how small), hanging from something or anywhere your container fits. Rain is a great help but you will probably need to water your plant. A little Miracle-Gro fertilizer is perfectly acceptable and even desirable, as long as you apply it according to the instructions. I've seen it double the size of some plants!
There is an abundance of information on the internet about suitable plants and containers (I've seen flowers in old shoes) and instructions on how to plant and care for them. I assume you can find a store that sells small plants.
Speaking as someone who grew up working in the family garden, an acre of vegetables that fed 5 people for a year, I can attest to the zen of growing something tasty and/or beautiful. Planting it, watching it grow, removing weeds and bugs that might harm it, keeping the soil worked and moist and finally seeing it blossom and bear fruit are calming and joyful.
Good luck and don't wait for help from the birds!
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@Country Girl Lots of New Yorkers grow their own tomatoes, and there are gardens and parks throughout the city. That wasn't the point of the article. The point was that it was growing in a very unlikely spot, within a part of the embayment people don't usually go, atop something few people can reach or would notice, high enough that even tidal surges don't usually cover it, in a river that many people still recall as so polluted swimming was banned and from which children and women of childbearing age are still advised not to eat fish.
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Something similar happened in my backyard. A plant spontaneously starting growing in an area that gets no water between our deck and gravel ground cover. I thought it was a weed but the leaves looked like a tomato plant so I left it alone. Several months later it started to produce fruit!
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I see those beautiful little grape or cherry tomatoes plants along the banks of Kanawha River where I walk my dog. I just think that they are wonderful hardy little plants that will grow just about any where. I love to see them thrive in the most unexpected places.
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These tomato plants are called volunteers. They are very sturdy plants with great genes!
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Reminds of our a field trip for our course on wastewater treatment to the sewage treatment plant - where lots of tomato seeds are found. They pass through the digestive system of humans so they are still viable. It's likely the seed passed into the water either from bird or human waste. You still have combined sewer overflows in NY so, when there's heavy rain, sewage discharges into surface water systems and into creeks or old river systems.
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@gf, at least they have a plan now to stop sewage overflows to the East River: https://www.riverkeeper.org/blogs/docket/sewage-nyc-overflow-stormwater/
My husband routinely eats small tomatoes by our pool and then tosses the juice and seeds over the edge of the hilltop on which the pool sits. Last month we discovered a full tomato plant growing in that exact location, despite this being California and it not having rained since May. It's now our most productive tomato plants, far outpacing the heirloom plants we pay our gardeners big bucks to plant and till for us all summer!
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@Shane
Propagate that plant! Either by cuttings or by saving the seeds.
Birds eat then fly and voila! Seeding machines!
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Years ago, before every square inch of Brooklyn Bridge Park was allocated to highly specific purposes I proposed that a smallish portio -- maybe 14th of an acre -- be turned into an organic vegetable farm. (I thought it could be modeled after the the fabulous farm in red Hook where they educate local youth while providing fresh produce to local restaurants.)
Alas, I was assured that there was no way that any vegetables would survive the harsh environment so close to the water. That the salt spray and wind would overwhelm and kill anything we planted.
All I have to say now is that a picture is worth 1,000 words. ;-)
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@Peter Steinberg bravo!
As I sit here in Atlanta after having evacuated from our home in SC thanks to another force of Nature, Dorian, this article sure provided a diversion and a very strong twinge of hope.
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Statue of Liberty in the background pales in comparison!
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As much as we gardeners fuss over tomato plants, the reality is that they drop their seeds and the next year there a new plants sprouting everywhere. Almost like weeds! Congratulations to this seed that found it's way to the middle of the river. Perhaps carried in a bird's droppings.
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@LeeBee They are weeds, tasty weeds.
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trump doesn't like fruit/vegetables. He will destroy this.
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“As my Forest Ecology professor Dr. Ken Adams used to say “Where something can grow, something will grow.”
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Just lovely.
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Do NOT eat that tomato.
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Sure, some bird bullseyes a nail hole with a tomato seed from how far away, but I play the lotto every day and not one million dollar payout...
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Can't believe some adventurous sea gull didn't want to check it out and poke a hole in it....
Perhaps be we can have a play written "A Tomato grows in Brooklyn".
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Umm... That’s not a tomato plant. It’s Audrey II! Don’t feed the plant!
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I'm surprised a bird hasn't accounted for it yet.
Life finds a way...
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Why isn't this article called, "A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn"?
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Great to see this article...!
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Nice job, Ameria and the Times. By bye, tomato plant. Will you media people and selfie takers never learn.
The benefit of feeding our dogs grape tomatoes as dog treats is a couple dozen random tomato plants in our yard every summer. Nothing’s more organic than the “poop tomatoes” we get from them - our dogs make their own treats!
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New Yorkers, don't be lulled into complacency. This is an unprecedented menace!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clqDkCJs19s
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Bloom where you are planted.
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2 summers ago a watermelon plant grew "spontaneously" in an unused pot on my terrace....... same bird???
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It might not just have come from poop. I kept finding seeds in my backyard bird bath. I was wondering how they got there till I spotted a trio of robins hanging out on the rim of the bird bath, gossiping and puffing themselves up and spitting seeds into the water, like a some back room scene in an old gangster movie.
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My favorite "Diego" episode of all time (there are far worst things to watch as a dad...) was when they needed to get magic strawberries to the market in time for the festival, so they had the iguana eat them and then poop them out at the festival. #that'shownatureworks!
Love it. Things like this make me happy, too. Helps us remember we're all part of an ecosystem, even as we try to sterilize so much of it.
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A bird pooped, that is how it got there.
Hardly bird poop, definitely a sign from above. To think that it's come to this? No wonder Revelations reads like gibberish.
Here in my neighborhood in Baltimore after a hard winter a few years ago, the roads were quite chewed up with cracks and potholes. An especially bad hole was around the corner on Guilford Avenue. So some clever wag planted a geranium in it. A bright red spot in the asphalt, it lasted several weeks before cars finally ran it over.
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Kudos NYT! Great photo to start the day, a true sign of hope and resiliency.
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They should make a movie about it. Then it can be reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes. :)
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Earlier this summer I took the garbage out to the bins by the garage and my eye caught something small and very red growing from the crack between the building foundation wall and the sidewalk. I gave it a closer look and found a perfect, tiny, wild strawberry. A vine plant, I traced it along the ground and found more berries. No idea how they got there. I ate them all and there were great. This one, though - a tomato plant on a piling in the East River - makes fools out of anyone who was ever unable to grow tomatoes in their garden...
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A Charlie Brown tomato plant!
“I’m used to seeing things grow here, but nothing as special as that,” said Mr. Frey, 54, a board member at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Boat House. “Things like that just make me happy.”
Yes they do.
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Tomato plant upon a piling:
you have left us all a-smiling.
In this world of strife and woe
it is nice to see you grow
without charge or dull complaint;
some might even call you quaint.
If I could but swim out to you
I'd put you in my goulash stew . . .
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I'm with Mr. Frey that this lifts my spirits. It brings to mind "Ode to the Tomato" by Pablo Neruda. Or perhaps Pink Martini's "Hang On Little Tomato".
@Len: Can't decide if the recipes are humor or bloodthirsty!
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A Charlie Brown tomato plant!
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I've never seen a more cheering picture for our time of national awfulness. Maybe it's a good omen for our poor, sad, abused Democracy: there's always hope.
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@Pathfox It does seem defiant!
"A tree grows in Brooklyn." Apparently, so does a tomato. Well done, beautiful, tenacious lfe.
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I wish I were half as resilient, resourceful and relentless as this lone tomato plant. What a role model for us all - private perseverance among a river of single pilings.
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This used to happen to us all the time. Our dog would eat the tomatoes off the vine. Sure enough, tomato plants stating popping up all over the yard. Nature at its finest.
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And it didn’t even need a 42" galvanized wire brightly colored tomato cage.
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Red Hook used to be filled with delicious crack tomatoes. And then Sandy happened. It's all amaranth all the time now.
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This is awesome. I have volunteers that "appear" in my garden every year. No, not planted by me.
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I am not at all surprised. One summer I watched a tomato plant grow, and bear fruit, out of a crack in a sidewalk in downtown Boston, fortuitously out of the way of pedestrian traffic. This one has a much safer perch.
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This tomato plant is symbolic of the plant world which is resilient and will provide sustenance for all of us if we don't ruin the soil and air they grow in by toxic chemicals and climate change.
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Attention 20 somethings. Let this simple image be a lesson - the Earth will survive.
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@Steve
Eh, I might be 34, but I'm not worried about the Earth; if we're going down that road, the Moon's doing just fine. I'm concern about us earthlings and all the other organisms a touch more advanced and specialized than the hardy tomato on the pole.
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The earth will always “survive” even as a bare rock floating aimlessly without a sun. It is us who won’t be so lucky. Let’s try not to hurry that part along any faster than we already are.
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@Steve
No question about that! What the kids are trying to say is: we may not.
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A refined person like myself hesitates to mention these things but tomato seeds also go through the human gut unchanged. This has been used in the past to detect spillage of raw sewage directly into water systems.
If this is in a tidal system or if waves are possible in this area that could have deposited the seed onto the piling, then a search should be made for tomato plants along the shore and if these be present, a break in sanitation sought.
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@erwin haas
Well there goes my appetite for a BLT at lunch.
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@erwin haas Thanks for sharing.
@erwin haas, exactly! There's a combined sewer overflow perhaps in the area. Any heavy rain would cause it.
I think this tomato plant is symbolic of ALL New Yorkers -
tough, stoic, independent, and willing to go it alone if necessary all the while displaying a natural beauty and strength that defines a real New Yorker is at heart.
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Thank you very much for your kind words.
@Marge Keller, or a sign that a combined sewer overflow is sending sewage into the water.
I can't help but wonder if "Sully" Sullenberger had something to do with it. Same zip code, and he knows something about "miracles"
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Such a story of hope. Should there be a lottery to see who gets to paddle out there to pick and eat the tomato with the lottery proceeds going to a charity? Just a thought.
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@Teedee
yes Teedee, that is absolute genius; a lottery if for nothing else than to keep the story going in this world of increasing rotten tomatoes
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A tomato grows in Brooklyn. Grab the bacon, lettuce & white bread!
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@Ms M.
Please don't forget the mayo. :-P
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Such a pleasant start to Thursday morning. Charming story and chatty comments. Thanks for at least one thing today void of aggression and snark.
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Mother Earth is trying to tell us something here.
If a tomato can grow in the middle of the Hudson river there has got to be other places as well we can grow our food.
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@Steen, You mean in NY Harbor a little south of the East River. The yellow-orange speck in the background just to the right of the Statue of Liberty is the Staten Island Ferry.
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And it tells us that there are alternatives to "factory farms" that use huge amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides and employ workers at criminally low wages. If everyone who could do it grew at least a few simple things, it would lessen our dependence on food grown by huge corporations.
I have no problem with local farmers committing their crops to a single buyer. Many of the farms in my area grow tomatoes for Campbell's, for example, but the farms are still owned by families. That's a great way for people to continue owning farms that may have been in their families for many generations.
Plenty of people have huge lawns that provide nothing edible. And obviously, the larger the garden, the more work is required. But an area about 10 ft. by 10 ft. can produce a lot of vegetables. That's big enough for 5 tomato plants, 5 pepper plants, some onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots and pole beans and a nice variety of herbs, along with flowers that look pretty and, if chosen correctly, will repel insects. (Marigolds are perfect for that.)
Another alternative is gardening in raised beds, built of wood and at a comfortable height for standing and working in them. My neighbor has a half-dozen of these and grows a substantial amount of food without having to stoop over.
You can't believe how much different and better fresh vegetables taste. It's very gratifying, too, to walk to your garden and pick a salad for dinner and herbs to season your main dish.
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This is the best photo EVER because it clearly shows just how tough, determined and tenacious nature is.
A tree may grow in Brooklyn but a "lone tomato plant grows on a piling in the East River."
Thanks NYT for making me smile by showing we are not yet doomed although some may vehemently dispute that notion.
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Someone should harvest that tomato and save the seeds to propagate next season. That's one hardy plant!
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@Josephine,
No. please don't touch it. Let birds and bugs eat it and share as they might. Let it fall into the river and have the fish do as they will.
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Just let it be, the seeds will volunteer themselves
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How wonderful, nature is amazing.
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Last year, I grew a whole bunch of tomatoes, jalapeño peppers and various herbs on my 11th floor terrace located two blocks from Brooklyn Bridge Park. Tomatoes being super cold sensitive, mine stopped growing sometime last October, leaving a bunch of green tomatoes on the vines. I finally got rid of the plants down to the soil mid-winter. Despite tomatoes being non-perennial this far north, having done absolutely zero planting, I am now harvesting tomatoes from six healthy tomato plants in the same and nearby planters as last year.
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Green tomatoes should be used to make chutney.
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@Paul Glotzer
IMDB Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
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Trekking the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) here in the Sierra near us east of Angels Camp, that runs from the Mexican border to the Canadian border we have encountered various vegetables and even some fruits that must have been started by a deposited by birds or deer who had visited a rural vegetable garden.
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Or deposited by a hiker who threw out the seed after eating the fruit.
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"Life seems to find a way"...When I find some plant growing through a crack on my patio this thought comes to mind. There seems to be a measure of peace as you muse that perhaps hope is not a wasted effort.
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@Judith Stallworth
Or as Tak* says "All things strive"
*The creator god of the dwarfs (Discworld)
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A Zen saying-
In a snow storm, every flake falls exactly where it's meant to.
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Remarkable! The New York Christian and Judaic clergy must delare the site of the tomato plant a place of a miracle, and the City should put there a memorial plaque.
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@Tuvw Xyz
Or...just chalk it up to open pollination.
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@Tuvw Xyz,
The last thing we need is having two out of many religions lay claim to this universal delight, an act of nature. The next to last thing we need is the city government affirming such useless bigotry and putting a plaque where? atop the piling to ensure there are no more plants?
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life will always find a way to live- not necessarily intelligent life mind you.
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Bansky.
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@Jeremy
Banksy
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@Jeremy:
Ha! Yes, it would be funny if it were Banksy (though you've inadvertently made him Polish with "Bansky"). :-)
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@Jeremy, with the same sentiment, allow me:
Banksy
It's obviously a "plant". The editorial choice to show tomato recipes below seems a bit cut throat.
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@Len
I actually thought the tomato recipes very appropriate!
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@Len Probably not a human editorial choice but rather an automated, computerized search posting. Shows you that everything is destined for consumption.
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Maybe it's just an algorithm. Dial down the incredulity and go eat a tomato.
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Love this. I photograph flowers and plants in crazy places - like asphalt parking lots. Mother Nature is powerful!
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My local historical society is doing a “downtown botany” walk soon. I’m looking forward to learning about the flora I see all the time without really looking at it.
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I am a home gardener, who has grown tomatoes for a few years now. Every season I find tomatoes popping up all around the yard and house, in little cracks with minimal soil (really just erosion). So this tomato here did not surprise me. It's like everything, when you want them to grow, they won't. When you don't try, up they pop, everywhere. Nature is amazing.
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@Steve
So true, despite my tending to numerous nursery bought tomato plants in my garden this year, the largest, most robust and fastest growing was one that popped up through the bricks on my front patio. I only hope there are sufficient warm sunny days left this fall so I can fully harvest its bounty. I may need to start looking into recipes for green tomatoes as I will not let one morsel of this amazing plant wind up anywhere else but my stomach.
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Yes, bird seeder was my instant response to how. But wonderful in so many ways was my overall response!
Thanks to Mr. Frey and NYT for sharing the great photo and news!
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@joan
My first thought was "Teenager. Target practice."
This truly is a remarkable story that demonstrates the resilience of our natural environment. It should offer us hope in our best efforts to create a diverse and ecologically stable planetary system that is capable of sustaining human life for thousands of years into the future.
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@James Edward Mills
"This truly is a remarkable story that demonstrates the resilience of our natural environment."
I could not agree more. Plus, it goes to show that since this rather hardly plant with one red tomato with blossoms for more, perhaps the need to use fertilizer is not always warranted.
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I love that in a city of 8 million, we can still appreciate something as hyperlocal as the tomato on the piling! This brightened my day (and made me want to go kayaking).
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Dolphins -- or at least perhaps they were dolphins -- were cavorting off Fort Tilden this afternoon. Saw a black fin, then another, then two more; but then one breached, and then a second one breached.
Another slapped its tail against the water as it dove; at that, I wondered if that one was a small whale.
Whatever they all were -- how lovely.
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