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Toe-mah-toe

Martha sent me an email today with helpful hints and recipes for making use of summer tomatoes. Just in time as I have a harvest of cherry tomatoes ready to pick on my plants.

This all reminds me of a funny story. Two years ago, I planted cherry tomatoes on my balcony for the first time. I was so excited. When the little green tomatoes started to grow I took pictures of their progress.

Just as they started to turn reddish it was time for me to make my annual trek to the seashore with my family. Kristen and Patrik kindly volunteered to water my plants and pick any tomatoes that were ready. They seemed amused by my enuthusiasm for my tomatoes.

A week later when I returned from vacation the first thing I did was run out and check my plants. There were cherry tomatoes everywhere! They were scattered in the pots, on the floor and one was even laying in a neighboring mums pot. Giddy with joy I gathered them up, gingerly placed them in a bowl and took a picture of my bounty.

The next day during a fire drill I recounted the vast quantities of tomatoes to Kristen and Patrik. They kept giggling. Did they find the pride I took in my farming skills that amusing? Oh no. Turns out they went to Wegmans and bought a container of cherry tomatoes to add to the existing meager amount of tomatoes. What they found especially hilarious was that they had left the tomato container on my counter as a clue. Did I catch on to that clue? No. I thought they had brought the container from home as a sign of "Look, you have so many tomatoes you could put them in this container and sell them at market".

I was crushed. I can laugh now, but at the time I was crushed I had not produced a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes.