Call Me an Optimist—Jobs Are Like Tomatoes?

One of my two “girls,” a tall productive yellow cherry tomato plan, bit the dust in early September. Her offspring were delicious. The sister plant with its plump red cherry tomatoes is nearing its demise. Both plants lived fruitful lives, enjoying the sun, enduring storms and cold nights, and delivering 100s of wonderful little tomatoes.

We popped them in our mouths raw right off the plant, we added them to vegetable and pasta dishes, and we sautéed them with leaves from our basil plants. They joined our stir fry meals and topped fish fillets.

As the two plants aged, they developed leaf spots and hosted spiders who strung their webs from stem to stem. They stopped being pretty. At one point, my husband pointed to them and declared they were done. No more of the little green gems were going to turn to red or yellow, he thought. “Time to cut them down.”

Call me an optimist. I wasn’t ready to give up (seems to be a lifelong trait of mine)…and it turned out I was right. We had at least a dozen more ripening tomatoes after the initial death sentence.

Now that their season is nearly finished, I look forward to planting their cousins in the spring. We had a good run together. It’s been great.

In a way, it's similar to leaving or losing a job you liked. It was a good run, but now it's time to move on.

[If you’re new to One Tomato at a Time, please check out these earlier posts on planting and tending my “girls.”]

One Tomato at a Time? What’s That About?

About six weeks after I was laid off in March, I decided it would be therapeutic to grow some tomatoes on my deck. Having something to focus on besides myself, something that would grow and be productive, seemed like a good way to channel any negative feelings I was having into something positive. Nearly 100 tomatoes later, I’m happy I did this.

The challenge was to nurture two plants to maturity using organic methods to avoid pesticides or other chemicals so I could visit my deck, pick a tomato and pop it in my mouth without having to wash it. With a couple of applications of organic plant food, companion plants to ward off insects, and daily attention, my two “girls,” as I named them, grew into 4-foot bundles of little yellow and red cherry tomatoes, sweet and ready to eat like candy.

The yellow tomato plant is done, unfortunately stricken by some kind of blight, but it had a good, highly productive life. As you can see in the photo above, the red tomatoes are still abundant, with more ready to ripen soon.

While it’s great having all these delicious orbs, the real point of growing them was to think outside of myself and take life one day (or tomato) at a time. It has been a coping mechanism for me. Some people knit or build things. I grow tomatoes.

The First Taste

I pulled out our sharpest paring knife to make the incision in our first yellow cherry tomato (See the previous post for its portrait). This little guy was going to be shared by two eager, hungry, D.C. deck gardeners. We had already waited long enough.

Cut into two half moons, the succulent little yellow morsels went into our mouths simultaneously. Mmm. Mmm.

Another small success.

The First Harvest

Okay…drum roll. Ceremoniously, we clipped the first tomato and bowed to our royal queen, the tallest of the two “girls.” The little yellow orb was like a piece of organic gold…only edible.

We took tomato #1 to the kitchen, rinsed and dried it. We placed it in the center of our small bamboo cutting board and measured it—pretty tiny at about 7/8th of an inch in diameter, but so beautiful.

We haven’t brought ourselves to cut it open yet, though. Maybe tonight.

Gully Washers

In my lifetime, I can’t remember a spring this wet. On many gray May and June days, our tiny yard filled with huge gushing puddles, including today. It seems like it will never end and I worry sometimes whether the yard can absorb any more water. We’ve had monster thunderstorms, gully-washing downpours and hailstorm threats over and over ever since the “girls” came home with me.

Since I adopted them, I have been treating my two tomato queens royally. After all, the better I treat them, the better they will treat me with mouth-watering red and yellow bite-sized gems. It’s just like any other relationship: you get what you give.

So, when the clouds start gathering and the local weather forecast shows imminent danger from above, I go into action. When the “girls” were small, it was easy to bring them in the house when the sky looked ominous. I set up an emergency spot in the livingroom where they could ride out the storms, sometimes overnight. But they complained and pouted, almost asking to be put back out. My “girls” drooped after a few hours in the air conditioning, even with the nearby vent closed. So, now they stay outside all the time. Besides, they’ve gotten so big and laden with ripening fruit, all we can really do is slide them against the house for a little protection during a storm.

Such a nice problem to have!

The Tomato Connection

Since my March layoff, I have become the proud parent of two “girls.” We met in May when I adopted them at a local garden center. It was love…and salivation…at first sight and in anticipation of the first bite.

Two small plants came home with me that day—both of which will eventually produce scrumptious cherry tomatoes, both red and yellow. My “girls,” as I call them, spent their first night tucked into two large patio pots in rich organic soil, staked for stability when they grew tall enough to need it. I surrounded them with companions: a ring of brilliant orange marigolds. Nearby, I also installed sweet and Thai basil plants to watch over their fruit-producing wards and fend off those nasty, disgusting and destructive tomato hornworms. Welcome to my deck garden.

Our deck gets just enough sun—about six hours a day when the weather permits it—to thrive. The rooflines in our townhouse community and several mature trees make the sun weave a patchwork of daytime glow that differs on each deck down the line. In the early morning, the sun hits only the right back corner. Then it bathes the center most of the mid-day, leaving a small sunny patch on the left outside corner for about an hour until it leaves our deck for the day around 4 p.m. The “girls” get the best of it, moving from one spot to another because, well, I have the time and I’m here.