It’s time to plant tomatoes people! To inspire you, here’s an excerpt from today’s Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor:

May 10, 2011

It was on this day in 1893 that the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato was a vegetable, not a fruit. Their ruling was in light of a 10-year-old piece of legislation called the Tariff Act of 1883, which ruled that a 10 percent tax had to be paid on all imported vegetables. The case, known as Nix vs. Hedden, was filed by John Nix and several other tomato importers against Edward Hedden, the Collector of Customs at the Port of New York. The case wound up in the Supreme Court, where Webster’s Dictionary was heavily cited. The plaintiffs argued that according to the dictionary definition of fruit — the structure that grows from the flower of the plant and holds the seeds — a tomato was a fruit. They called two witnesses, both of whom heard Read on… »

In response to muckraking by animal rights groups and consumer rights activists, legislators in big-ag states Iowa, Minnesota and Florida are proposing laws that would make taking photos of farms illegal. (All farms, and no matter your motives.) The laws are already about to be voted on by the Senate in both Iowa and Florida, so now’s the time to act, before you get hauled off to the big house for those snaps of cute dairy cows frolicking in a springtime meadow. Take a moment to check out Slow Food USA’s “Farmarazzi” campaign. Sign the petition, then head out and take some farm photos, get the farmer’s story, and post them on Slow Food’s Facebook page.