DANIEL TYLER GOODEN

PHOTOS: CARING FOR HIS CROP one plant at a time. Fernand Rome looks over his tomatoes, making sure their clean and healthy. In a year 3500 plants will fall under Rome’s careful eye before they’re shipped out to local stores or sold to drive-by customers. (Staff Photo by Daniel Tyler Gooden) ROMEVILLE – They might not be as pesky as children, but you still have to watch them like a hawk. Fernand Rome has been growing tomatoes in Romeville since 1967. With 3,500 plants growing a year, Rome keeps an eye on them every hour of the day or night to make sure they produce the plump red tomatoes he’s known for growing. Rome started growing part time 37 years ago, but not tomatoes. After coming home from teaching, Rome would work to grow mums. A friend of his got him interested in the flowers, and that’s where it all began. The flowers took a lot of work, “but I had a lot of help then,” said Rome. Rome taught in the St. James Parish School System 11 years before he retired in 1978 and turned his part-time gardening into a full-time job. His father, Audrey Rome, was a farmer, and he helped work the plants in the afternoon. Other friends and family helped out in the beginning, and by the second year Rome was planting both mums and tomatoes. “I grew mums for 25 years until 1991 or 1992,” said Rome. Mums were a more precarious crop since the whole season came down to one harvest. With tomatoes, the fruit could be harvested over a longer period of time and had a quicker turnaround, said Rome. “You don’t have to spend as much time on tomatoes, either,” he added. The first year Rome planted under the blue sky. By the second year, Rome was interested in planting in a greenhouse. Only one other farmer was planting tomatoes under plastic at the time. “Mr. Breaux in St. Amant was growing tomatoes. I knew about growing the tomatoes, but I learned about greenhouses from him,” said Rome. Rome also joined the former Louisiana Greenhouse Growers Society, which at the time kept farmers up to date on the ins-and-outs of greenhouse gardening. Rome said he rustled construction wood out of the river for his first greenhouse. He build a wooden structure, 40 feet by 50 feet. The next year he added another 50 feet in length, and in 1979 he moved from the wooden constructions to the pre-fabricated aluminum piping that is most common. “There are no nails used, so we save a lot of plastic now,” said Rome. The plastic that covers the greenhouse is a special polymer which is resistant to ultra-violet light. It last about three years. “I leave it for two years on top and one year on the sides,” said Rome. Regular construction plastic only lasts about two months. Before the UV-resistant plastic, Rome would have to replace cracked and faded covering right about harvest time. “You don’t want to be replacing that in winter with the wind blowing everything around,” said Rome. With the plastic covering Rome is able to keep a stable environment in the greenhouse. “The main difference is regulating the water,” said Rome. The rest of the weather, cold snaps, heat waves and other changes, affect the plants in the greenhouse just as it would affect plants in an open field. Rome can minimize problems caused by temperature fluctuation with a greenhouse. Internal heaters keep the plants warm when the temperature drops, and fans cool the plants in the summer when they get too hot. Rome said disease is the main problem in greenhouses. With all the water trapped in the greenhouse, the environment can get very humid, and the plants must be kept dry to avoid becoming moldy and infected. “If there’s a week or so of damp cool weather then you’re in for some problems. If the air gets stagnant, mold will develop on the leaves,” said Rome. The fans help keep the air circulating and the plants dry. Rome watches carefully for any problems that would keep his plants from growing at their best. He has an alarm by his bed that will ring if the power goes out, prompting him to turn on the generators. During cold weather Rome will get up in the middle of the night and check the temperatures in the greenhouses. If the temperature gets too low or too high the tomatoes will grow deformed or not at all. The deformed tomatoes are separated from the main crop, even though they sometimes taste just as good or better than the rest, said Rome. Out of his 3,500 plants, Rome usually averages 10 to 15 pounds per plant. His brother Gayle Rome helps out a lot, as does the rest of his family and friends. When it’s time to pick the crop Rome and his helpers pick three days a week, alternating with three days of delivering. His tomatoes go out to groceries in Baton Rouge, Reserve, Lutcher, Donaldsonville and more. Many customers head right for his doorstep on the River Road and get their tomatoes fresh off the plants. “A lot of people just drop by. We’ve had people all the way from Lafayette,” said Rome. With all the time spent planting, pruning and picking tomatoes, Rome still loves preparing them as well. “We eat them all the time. I’ve never got tired of them,” said Rome.