What's The Deal With The Tomatoes?

When I was a child my neighbor used to have a small garden. He grew a little bit of everything but mostly he grew tomatoes. I used to love picking those tomatoes off and eating them, digging into them like I was eating an apple. Those were the best tasting tomatoes! I would eat them until I almost made myself sick. Then, after a while, I would go back for more. My neighbor (Mr. Dugan was his name) didn't care because even though his garden was small he always had plenty of tomatoes growing. They just seemed to keep growing and multiplying.


As I grew older we moved away from that neighborhood and, living in a suburban area of Washington, DC, we always seemed to have a yard that was too small to have a garden. So since the time I was around 12 or 13 I have had to rely on buying fresh tomatoes from a local produce stand. Now that's not really a problem except for the fact that I always wanted to grow my own tomatoes.


Fast forward now a good number of years to the present. When I moved into the house that I currently live in I finally had a yard big enough to grow a small garden. I moved here in September and could not wait until the Spring came so I could get this garden planted. Spring finally came (three years ago) and I ran out and got some tomato plants, some gardening gloves and a watering can (we don't have an outside faucet). I get home with this stuff and my husband says, "Who's gonna dig this garden?". I replied, "I don't know, I never really thought about it". I mean, I was just going to dig little holes and plant the tomato plants (I'm a city girl). Wrong!!! We finally got the neighbor to come over with his Rototiller and get this garden started for me. He tilled the garden and I planted my tomatoes. I weeded, watered and cared for those tomato plants and how many tomatoes do you thinK I got? Three, that's all. Out of six plants I got three tomatoes. So I blamed it on them not getting enough sun that year.


The following year I got the neighbor to Rototill a different part of the yard. How many tomatoes did I get last year? About ten or so. Last year I said the deer were somehow getting in the yard and eating the tomatoes. Now, this year I got smart and decided to get one of those Topsy Turvy planters. I figured they would be easier and, by now, my husband is tired of me tilling up half the yard. He says it makes it harder to mow...like that's MY problem, lol. So far, out of this one planter I have gotten one ripe tomato and four that are not yet ripe. Oh, did I forget to mention that the plant is now dying? Pfffft, I give up!!!!


I guess the moral of this story is girls who grew up in the city should just get in their car, drive up the mountain to the produce stand and continue buying tomatoes like they have done their whole lives. I guess you can take the girl out of the city but you can't take the city out of the girl...not this one anyway.


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