After weeks of wild and crazy weather it looks like everything is back in it's season, with a weather forecast for next week that should excite anyone with green thumbs, brown knees, and a sore back.
There's something truely special about the tomato plant. Not the plant itself, but the symbolism of the plant because when you can start setting tomato plants out in the garden you know a page is turning. The dreariness of winter is but distant memory, the re-birth that happens every year is felt once again, the longing for those beautiful, warm summer evenings only a page away.
So, even though you have your own favorite variety, your own way of growing (cages versus stakes, versus weave) even your own pronunciation (you say tomato, I say tuh-mater) the pleasures and rewards of planting, watering, tending, and harvesting are shared experiences, a bond between man and nature as old as life itself.
I set out over a hundred tomato and pepper plants yesterday, and I can feel it today, knees a little stiff, back a little sore, skin a little sun burned, but they're little pains that feel good in their own odd sort of way. No pain, no gain as they say. Here's a photo of some tomato plants I took yesterday (these are a yellow cherry):
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful holiday!
Pork & Greens