How Are Your Tomatoes?

By this time last year Mike Kuntupis was already picking tomatoes and cucumbers from his slice of heaven.

In the back of his Paradise Road yard on June 30, 2010 he cut tomatoes and cucumbers from his garden and served them to a woman on their first date.

The tomatoes and cucumbers were unbelievably good, he said.

The relationship hasn't been bad, either.

They are engaged to get married. It won't be the first marriage for either of them. Kuntupis lost his last wife after a prolonged illness.

Kuntupis, who has lived in the United States for 42 years, comes from Ikaria.

The Greek Island's name comes from Icarus, son of Daedalus in Greek mythology. Icarus took to the air on wings of wax and feathers but flew too close to the sun.

On Ikaria, the Kuntupis family had a farm. Kuntupis still gets olive oil sent to him from trees that grow on the land, and wine from its grapes.

Kuntupis has a wildly healthy grape vine on Paradise Road but raccoons get most of the fruit. The raccoons grow fat on the grapes. They climb the vines and devour the grapes.

Chipmunks eat his raspberries. A few years ago groundhogs ate the tops from beautiful heads of lettuce, destroying the entire lot.

But the yard is a horn of plenty, an island of vegetables, flowers and herbs.

He grows wild plants such as Vlita that Ikirian people — known for their longevity — eat.

Some plants that people have given him are nameless to him. He will wait to see what vegetable they bear.

His tomato plants are shoulder and head high, They are Big Boy, Sonic, Jetsetter, Park's Whopper to name a few.

The tomatoes are beautiful and round.

"This is what it is all about," he says, turning a tomato that is closing in upon ripeness, "the first red tomato."

He also grows Hungarian peppers, egg plant, cucumbers and radishes, varieties of lettuce and beans. He planted pole bean plants that climb his stone wall and bloom orange.

He grows for quality not quantity, and for his eyes.

"To me, I like to grow things to look at," he said.

He tends his garden in bare feet or comfortable shoes with no laces.

He makes Greek salad from garden vegetables and imported feta cheese.

He crumbles yard-grown basil over heated olive oil and pours it over fresh mozzarella.

During the day he works spreading plaster and stucco, a job he has done for 32 years.

At the end of the day he goes into his garden.

His tomatoes are doing good. A little late this year but real good.