My One And Only

My shiny, juicy, red, lonely homegrown tomato.
(Click picture for larger view)

"When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens." ~ Anne Lamott

Look what I grew this summer! Yes, it was the only one that managed to survive to this size and ripen as well. Yes, it was the first one. But it made the most luscious and juicy bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. And this is an extremely special tomato!

You will have to understand my background in home gardening; I have none. Yes, I managed to grow impatiens that filled my flowerbeds and were up to three feet in height in some areas, but you can't eat them... at least I don't think so; and that only happened one year, so I think it was an accident. Until this year, every tomato plant I have ever planted grew for a month and then curled up and died. Other vegetables didn't even make it that far. I killed a fig tree. It is almost impossible to kill a fig tree; Dad sticks a limb with only two leaves in the ground and in one season there are more branches starting and leaves galore. But I killed the fig tree. My brother left a live evergreen Christmas tree in Mississippi. We planted it outside in a sheltered area.... it died too. I've never been good at this.

But this year I grew cucumbers (two kinds) and two kinds of tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes yielded more than the large bigboy tomatoes, but this one was so red and shiny. Rabbits and squirrels got most of the other large ones. With the plant and the fertilizer and water... I figure this tomato cost at least $4.00. It was a really, really, really good bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich though. (Wink!)

PS: The jury on the pumpkins is still out... or rather, I'm in the middle of that saga and don't want to tell just yet. You'll have to stay tuned for that one. Other attempts were not so great. My pan squash made it to the flowering stage but didn't "pan" out... so to speak. My watermelon seed came up but didn't make it to the flowering stage. My bell pepper turned out to be an imposter. The caterpillars skeletonized the collards as fast as the new leaves came out but they are technically my dad's project. So I'm still not a good gardener.

Submission for Thursday Challenge topic "shiny". (end of post)