TRADITION

Few descendants of the early Italian settlers remain in San Margherita. The Far West Side community built around limestone pits is now giving way to development, and Capuano’s huge garden at Trabue Road and McKinley Avenue is never far from orange barrels and bulldozers.

“San Margherita is going to be gone,” said his wife, Connie. “The face is totally changing.”

Her husband prefers not to talk about that and what it inevitably means for the land, at least not in August. August is for eggplant and peppers, zucchini and heirloom tomatoes.

“It’s been a real good year,” said Capuano, a retired carpenter who lives in Hilliard and commutes to his garden. “Rain, sun, rain, sun. It’s just been a perfect growing season.”

He wears a Vietnam veteran ballcap and a T-shirt emblazoned with his nickname, “Tomato Dick.” The Capuano vegetable stand is painted like the Italian flag and never wants for business.

“We were out in Montana for a while, and they do not have tomatoes out there — not like these,” said Hilliard resident Stephanie Gorenflo. She filled her paper sack, paid by the pound and told Capuano she’d probably be back tomorrow.

Gorenflo smiled as she walked to her car. She also wore a tomatothemed T-shirt, one with a quote from the writer and humorist Lewis Grizzard: “It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.”

Lots of people want to knowCapuano’s secrets. They hardly believe it when he swears the key is not to water. “We let Mother Nature do it,” he said. “Your roots will go down deep. The problem is, if you water, you get spots and rot.”

Even during the hottest and driest weeks?

“Sometimes I’ve felt sorry for them and I give ‘em a shot, and then I regret it,” he said.

He doesn’t let the fruit of his 1,800 plants fully ripen on the vine, either, lest they crack or split. That means even more work, as Capuano picks every evening and transports hundreds of tomatoes to his home to soften and ripen — in a room or on a porch that’s hot but not in direct sun. Then back to the stand they go.

Mrs. Capuano says that isn’t all. “I think his biggest secret is love,” she said. “He puts a lot of love into them.”

She is the one who manages to say out loud that they recently sold the three-acre parcel to developers. “Dick’s still in denial, I think,” Mrs. Capuano said. “He grew up here. You share the garden, learn from the garden. Our grandkids are fifth generation.”

The kids know all their grandfather’s favorite varieties — the Kellogg’s Breakfast Tomato, Lemon Boy, Mortgage Lifter — and they know better than to set one of his tomatoes down stem-side up. “You never put a baby on its head, do you?” Mr. Capuano says.

The family isn’t sure of the development timeline, so Mr. Capuano is making an alternative plan for next year. The garden will move a few houses west to the Castorano family’s deep lot along Trabue. “It’s backup,” Mr. Capuano said. “I’m not dead in the water yet.”

Anthony Castorano, Mr. Capuano’s uncle, was lovingly referred to as the Mayor of San Margherita and his son Joe still has the homestead. “I hate to sell,” Joe Castorano said, but he knows the time will come.

His father was an equally devout tomato guy. At Anthony Castorano’s funeral in 2008, friends and family skipped the lilies and put potted tomato plants at the head of his casket.

“Dick wants that, too,” Mrs. Capuano said.