My Tomato Crop

In the Spring, Thom gave me two tomato plants out of the six he had bought. His are now five feet tall, surrounding their stakes with an abundance of lush green leaves and hanging with fruit. Mine, as is painfully obvious, did not fare so well. I haven't been very good at growing vegetables since the kids were small and we had a huge garden in Newburg. Not only was I constantly seeing things I didn't want to see, like snakes and slugs and worms, but I was forced to work at breakneck speed to keep up with the harvesting, canning, and freezing. Cooking and eating was a chore as I stuggled to think of fifty ways to eat lettuce. The final straw was watching what seemed like hundreds of caterpillar-like creatures floating out from behind the broccoli heads when I plunged them into a sink full of water. I never wanted to see a vegetable again that wasn't lying in a white paper tray and surrounded by plastic wrap. When you live in the country, it's hard to get away from fresh vegetables because all your neighbors bring you the surplus from their own gardens. I managed, though, by dropping their bounty into the trash as soon as they were out of sight.

My flower garden is now in its Fall decline, a little sooner than in the past because my weed-wacker stopped working. Therefore the weeds and grass have given the yard an unkempt look, along with the fact that most of my plants bloom in the spring and are now long past their prime. I can take some solace in the fact that I kept it looking good all through May, June, July, and part of August. That's a record for me, whose enthusiasm for taking care of it usually dies in the middle of June. I've enjoyed it immensely this year, and next spring I will definitely add some Fall blooming plants. And a new weed-wacker will be a necessity.