I waited weeks for it to ripen, never thinking it actually would, having lost all manner of tomatoes over the years to fungus, rot, rodent, ruminant, or insect.
Weeks to ripen, minutes to eat. It was delicious, but was it worth it?
I’ve had a book in my shopping cart at Amazon for a long time, called The $64 Tomato — one man’s humorous account of trying to grow an organic garden at his Hudson Valley “farmstead.” He came to the conclusion that each tomato he harvested cost him $64 because of all he’d had to invest in the effort.
This year, I planted a dozen tomato plants — 4 in my upside-down 5-gallon bucket experiment (they’re doing terribly); 1 in last year’s “topsy-turvy” commercial upside-down planter (it finally has a few blossoms and little squirts on it); 1 in a big planter (this tomato came from that); and the rest scattered in the garden amid the shrubs and flowers — wherever I could find space. Some of them have nice-looking green tomatoes on them; some lost what they did have to said fungus, rot, rodent, ruminant, or insect; some didn’t have a fighting chance because I stuck them in the ground and forgot about them. Some are supposed to be gold instead of red, but since all of them are still green, I’m not sure which is which.
All told, I probably have $44 invested in those tomatoes this year (plants, buckets, soil).
I contrast this to my friends’ lush garden I had the pleasure of visiting last week. Beautiful raised beds chock-full of healthy plants laden with fruit & veggies. Awe inspiring. Mouth watering.
Did I mention all 5 of my pepper plants withered and died? And 2 of 5 jalapeno plants? (The other 3 are laden with peppers, but iffy looking.) Apparently the dreaded blight that devastated last year’s gardens also affects peppers — and petunias of all things (every one of the petunias I planted in the top of my bucket planters to pretty them up died within a couple weeks). Experts advise rotating crops so you’re not planting tomatoes or peppers where you planted them last year — in my limited space, I won’t have that luxury, ever.
Even Mike said, after hearing and seeing me lament my blasted tomatoes for the 237th time, “Are you sure it’s worth it? They’re not expensive to buy.”
After years of disappointment, I’m starting to agree. Yes, there’s nothing quite like a tomato right off the vine. But every tomato came off a vine somewhere. And sure, fresh eggs, fresh milk, fresh juice — they’re all better, but I’m not obsessing over raising chickens, cows, or oranges.
It may be time to give up. To keep my gardening dollars and energies focused on growing things I know I can grow and leave the fruit & veggies to the experts (i.e., pretty much everyone else). There’s some nobility in knowing when to say uncle, right? In quitting while you’re (sort of) ahead?
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Writing by Ear 