Monday, July 26, 2010 One! Singular Tomato!

April 1st I started my seeds indoors. Now, just under 4 months later, I have plucked my first fruit - a tomato the size of a dime.

My husband and I ate it, it wasn't even ripe yet, but the good news is we got to it before the neighborhood squirrel got to it. This is a feat.

Last year the little bastard got each one of my tomatoes, one at a time as they ripened. I know this because I've caught him in the act! I've chased him off my porch in the early morning hours too many times to count. His dexterity and ability to crawl through the smallest opening, around every me-made impediment, is almost charming. The look on his face when he gets caught is adorable. Then he quickly and clumsily scampers away and out what I never knew was an in.

The whole thing is both maddening and amusing.

Here I am, on the second west-facing floor, growing tomatoes out of an icing bucket. It's not remotely cost or time effective. And this summer has been so hot I've been forced to cut back on my usual habit of sitting on the porch staring at the plants and waiting for them to grow.

I've never had much luck with vegetables and yet I insist on growing some every year. Herbs have always done well for me, but this year it seems I bought a bunch of bad ones because three of them have died. It could be that my soil is simply exhausted. I haven't been composting like I should be, but composting on a porch isn't that easy and my husband doesn't really like it. I understand.

But I garden on...

On a somewhat related note, I stumbled upon a group of volunteers at the Bird Preserve today. I'm assuming they were from the UCONN Master Gardener program. I should have asked but I skipped right to asking what they were doing. They were pulling up an invasive weed, they had stacked up piles of it in the path. She told me the name and I quickly forgot it. It had a "Z" in it. Looked like a nice plant to me but they know better than I do. I've read an article or two about goats eating kudzu so I know invasive species need to be swiftly squashed.

"That's cool" was my well educated response. "This is the coolest place in Stamford. I tell all my friends, it's the only place people smile and say hello. Everywhere else in Stamford people stink."

I censored myself by not saying "suck."

They giggled - because I was right. And right is funny.

"That's nice to hear!"

"Well, it's true. So, thank you."

And as I walked around the rest of the path I wished The Headbanging Hostess could throw them a dinner party. Because, ladies and gentlemen, those people are super cool people. They'll get dressed up like mailmen in the outback and pull weeds out of a pond in order to provide a place for wildlife to frolic and for us to enjoy.

And they don't do it for glory, or press. They're not "tweeting" about their work. They do it because it's right. Because it needs to be done.

That rocks!

Bang on, my peeps!

-HH