And So It Begins

We had our first taste of vegetable deliciousness from the garden today. Not much, just a piece of lettuce on a sandwich for lunch, and a salad with dinner, but it's a start.

Keith said he saw little tiny tomatoes on the plants so I looked.

He was right!

I was out in the garden yesterday, planting some more lettuce & putting another layer of bondage on the tomatoes when I saw them. Not just one or two, and not the pretty little pea-sized things I was expecting. There were bunches, some of them as big around as quarters. All of them were on the Bloody Butcher plants. I have no idea where the name comes from. You know with a name like Bloody Butcher there has to be a story. They produce small tomatoes, about the size of plums, so I'm hoping we have some ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July.

I looked over the other plants but I didn't see tomatoes on any of them. I think the ones that I thought might be Giant Delicious or might be Romas are all Giant Delicious. They all look the same and they all have stems the size of those giant magic markers. Huge, industrial strength stems, like they're getting ready to hold up bowling balls instead of those little, runty looking Romas.

The plants we got from our neighbors are looking better. Nowhere near as awesome as the Giant Delicious & Bloody Butchers, but they're not embarrassing anymore. They're actually tall enough now to tie up.

And then there are the cherry tomatoes. I have two kinds of cherry tomatoes. Your standard, Large Red Cherry, which has exactly what the name implies - large, red cherry tomatoes. Then I have my Riesentraube tomato, which has tons of tiny, blueberry-sized tomatoes. You would think one of them would put out the first tomatoes, but so far there are only a couple of flowers on one of the Large Red Cherry's & nothing on the Riesentraube.

The only other tomato plant we have is one lonely Cherokee Purple. I planted them last, just because the neighbors mentioned liking them. I only planted a couple, not 20 or 30, & gave the neighbors almost all of them. Rabbits attacked the two I kept, one so bad I ended up pulling it out, but I left one in hopes that it might survive.

It is.

Barely.

We decided to go ahead & plant a little bit in the old garden. After all, the strawberries are still there. Might as well plant some of the left-over tomato plants I had laying around. That's where the Cherokee Purple ended up.

Over in the swamp.

I don't know if it's too much water, or if the trees shade it too much, or if it's just because these were all planted last, or if it's all of the above, but the stuff in the old garden is looking extra crappy. Rabbits ate half of the green beans Keith ended up planting there. They also nibbled on half of the tomatoes in the old garden, but even the ones that didn't get mowed back are pretty scrawny.

At least compared to the Bloody Butchers.

The Hulkinators of Tomatoes.

If any tomatoes ever achieve consciousness, it'll be my Bloody Butchers.