About a month ago at the farmers market, I passed this sign next to a table of friendly-looking volunteers:

How are your tomatoes doing?  Tell us your story (or ask us for help).

I stopped in for some confession time.  I admitted to the sin of envy, and worse, the sin of not having picked the suckers off my tomato plants when they were still young, and there was still time.

I told the women that I’d thought my tomato plants were doing okay, short as they were, because I’d been eating tomatoes from them since sometime in July.  But then, the other day, I’d been out for a walk and seen two different gardens full of the tallest, thickest-stemmed, darkest-leafed and most lush and healthy looking tomato plants I’d ever seen.  Now I felt like there was some way I was neglecting my own.

Okay, sure.  I hadn’t pinched the suckers.  I didn’t water every day.  I never read the plants bedtime stories.  I planted the roots low, but not so low as I imagine they would have liked.  And I didn’t put down any of that red plastic that’s supposed to encourage tomato growth.  Did I mention the lack of bedtime stories? 

The women looked thoughtful for a moment, and one of them asked, “Tell me, those beautiful tomato plants you saw.  Did any of them have any tomatoes on them?”  Sure, I said, they had a bunch of green tomatoes.  “No ripe ones?”  Nope.  “And,” she continued, “you’ve been eating tomatoes already for a few weeks now?”  Well, yes.  “Then you’re successfully growing tomatoes, and they may not be.  Time will tell.”

I admit, I was a little skeptical.  Their plants were beautiful and enormous, and mine weren’t growing all that tall, especially not in the lousy soil I’d enriched but not enough, nor the limited sunlight available.  If their tomatoes ever ripened, they’d be feasting.

But she had a point.  I was eating tomatoes.  I’m still eating tomatoes.  A lot of gardeners still have mostly green tomatoes, and will only get green tomatoes this season.  My tomato plants may not have stems as thick as a body builder’s wrist, nor the darkest green leaves I’ve ever seen, but they do have... tomatoes.  And there are things I can do better next year, but for this year, I have grown tomatoes successfully.

Sometimes the tomato plant that seems the most impressive is putting too much energy into being impressive, and not enough into growing tomatoes.  Another life lesson learned by putting my hands in the soil.

Permalink: http://www.gofrolic.org/gofrolic/food_blog/Entries/2008/9/25_Redefining_tomato_success.html