Ah! Tomatoes

i
mere seeds in winter
planted with care and nurture
spouts emerge in early spring

Photo Credit:Victoria Slotto
David and Sparky

ii
water sun and soil
engender succulent fruit
harvesting begins

Photo Credit: David Slotto

iii
pure pleasure ensues
abundance shared with others
juicy crimson joy

Photo Credit: David Slotto

iv
but what do I see?
anomaly of nature
Frankenstein returns

Photo Credit: David Slotto

This post is more about the poetry of my husband’s garden than the poetry of words. Each year in the first week of March, while we’re still in the desert, David starts heirloom tomato plants from seed. He uses a growing lamp set up in the shower of the guest bathroom. When they get to be a few inches high, he tranplants them into separate pots and after a while, begins to introduce them to the Californa sun. By the time we leave for Reno they’re usually a couple of feet tall and he transports them in the front seat of his car, back into cold country (we usually have more freezes and often, snow, when we get back home). Then he needs to begin again to re-acclimate them to the weather, placing them outside a few hours at a time, while he rototills his raised garden bed. Around the last week in May, he plants them (along with other veggies and herbs). Sometimes he uses “walls of water” to keep them warm; quite often he has to sneak out at bedtime and cover them in plastic or sheets. Let’s just say he’s the nurturing type. (He does ALL the cooking).

The last couple of weeks he’s begun harvesting.  Frankenstein is an heirloom called Elmer’s Old German. We couldn’t believe the perfect suture line down the middle, as though Nature sewed two tomatoes together. Frankenstein weight 2 lbs, 0.5 oz and at his width measures 6 inches.

Please join us at dVerse Poets’ Pub for Open Link Night. Natasha Head is our beautiful, talented hostess. I’m on my way with last year’s batch of Bloody Mary Mix, made from our 2011 crop! I look forward to sampling your work.