Tomato Time

Until this season, I had never harvested anything that I seeded. Having only ever used starts, I guessed that if I seeded, I surely wouldn’t get one huge plant from every single tiny seed, would I? Naturally, I overcompensated figuring that I would lose many seeds to my faulty planting abilities. I remember the first warm week of the Spring — me: full term and counting — I put these little seeds in some egg cartons and said a little prayer that my contribution to our garden would be fruitful.

Well, the prayer worked, along with plenty of water and sunshine. I got 41 tomato plants in the veg garden right now, overgrowing and climbing all over themselves, getting heavy with swollen beautiful fruit. After this heat wave last week I thought, my oh my, this summer might just be hanging on long enough for me to get a harvest of tomatoes (despite that I planted them so late). And all this without an ounce of pesticide, fertilizer, insecticide, what have you.

I think it’s safe to say that it is now time for pickin! It was so much fun today to carefully navigate our “crop” for the fruits of our labor. Nothing screams late summer like the colors and shapes of heirloom tomatoes in a windowsill…

Also, check out the clusters of plums hanging ready to pick above the chicken coop: