now remember, i'm one of those people who likes to try things first on their own before paying someone else for their product or service...when we moved into the house we are in and i looked into our tiny backyard, i decided i wanted a garden. i saw beautiful flowers with colorful blossoms and morning glories climbing the fence and vegetable plants of all kinds heavy with delicious healthy (free) goodness...well a few things happened that made this vision difficult: 1. i found out i was pregnant-and started taking 2-3 naps a day during the first three months and 2. once i got out into the backyard to start digging this garden, i found we did not have dirt, we had clay. in october, my parents came down to visit and my father-bless his heart-spent his week of vacation putting in a garden in my backyard...this is the start of the tomato plant story.
i didn't expect the little tomato plant i had to last long seeing as how it was october and we were coming up on winter. i got a tomato or two off it of before it snowed. thats right. snow. in louisiana. the first time in 20 years-i am not a fan of cold, so snow is not high on my list of favorites. well, i tried covering the thing but it didn't work, we had too many nights of freezing and my little tomato plant shriveled and turned brown...
january rolled around and i decided i was going to start many things from seed in my dining room window. this was a HUGE success. i planted 9 things and 8 of them thrived. by march all of my plants were two feet tall and happy oxygen producers. on march 1st (when i was sure we were done with cold) i transplanted three lucky (or not so lucky) tomato plants outside. the next day it snowed. crap. those three died. two weeks later i planted three more plants-i had just sprinkled a handful of seeds into a big pot, so i had 10ish plants looking for room in the window...it snowed AGAIN. i was cursing mother nature like no one should. april rolled around and on earth day i thought of making peace with mother nature and tried planting three more tomato plants. she wasn't done with me. the next day it rained so hard by the next morning what was left of my plants was beaten into the clay/mud mess of a garden...i was so upset. i trudged outside and carefully pulled each leaf out of the dirt, wiped it off and staked what was left of my three pathetic plants. i had pretty much given up hope they would survive, but here we are a year later...
i have over 12 tomatoes between the three plants, they are almost as tall as the privacy fence and two of them are very close to picking :) i have never been more proud of a fruit before...
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