When Life Gives You Tomatoes...

I remember having a garden my whole life. It was a huge, raised garden in our backyard. Beans, corn, radishes, zucchini, squash, carrots, cherry tomatoes, tangelos, raspberries...everything. I love, love, love vegetables, and I attribute it to having fresh vegetables right in my own backyard.

Sometimes, I hated that garden. Like when I would get in trouble, instead of being grounded, I was punished by having to weed the garden. Again, that garden was huge! Not fun!

Although, I loved having a garden growing up, I never really had much motivation to plant my own garden. I don't know why...I guess it seemed like too much work.

Well, in May, we went to the Farmers Market and bought 3 tomato plants and three strawberry plants. Joe planted them and we immediately thought the tomato plants had drowned. It rained so much after they were planted, we thought they were dead for sure. But after a few weeks, it was evident that they had held on. Then a few weeks later, they had grown so tall, that we built a support structure for them. Now, still, they are laying horizontal on the ground, they're so tall and heavy.

The girls have loved going out with their daddy and checking the status of the tomatoes (Our strawberries are failing miserably). Sometimes they stay out there so long, I think they're watching them grow. They water them with their own little buckets and take such good care of the plants. joe treats these plants like a child. As soon as he walks in the door and the girls jump on him, he goes outside and investigates the days growth. He counts the tomatoes and hand waters them. It's sweet. And the girls stay right along side of him the whole time.

The other morning the slider was open and I could hear Gwen outside playing. When I went to check on her, she was over by the "pamatoes" talking to them. She would reach out her little hand and pet the ones she could touch and would speak words of love to each green tomato. It was priceless. "Daddy's pamatoes. Daddy's pamatoes so pretty." (Note the pajamas)
We've started to pick our first red ones, but in about a week we'll have at least a hundred tomatoes fresh off the vine. I feel like I should load them up in a wagon and deliver them anonymously to neighbors and friends. The girls would think that was so fun to leave baskets of tomatoes on doorsteps, ring the doorbell and run away.

Because really, what am I going to do with all these tomatoes? Homemade salsa is about the only thing that sounds appealing at the moment. Anyone want to place an order? Free of charge. They are literally grown with lots of love. Anyone, anyone?