Growing vegetables and flowers on the high plains of Western
Kansas requires eternal hope much like a child’s expectant, devoted belief in
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Because we trust, we will harvest succulent,
homegrown vegetables and fruits. Each spring gardeners across this region sift
through garden magazines and seed catalogues or visit local garden shops with a
gambler’s hope that this will be the year.
Eleven years after moving to our limestone hilltop, payday arrived.
Yes, Virginia, that garden will produce a bonanza harvest.
Due to a combination of timely rains and chicken poop, we
had a dream tomato harvest--this despite hail that totaled our roof and left
tender tomato plants shattered and broken. Despite the setback, vines began
producing at the end of July, only a bit later than they might have without
Mother Nature’s challenges. Produce was an understatement. The plants burgeoned
with softball-sized fruits that tasted like captured sunbeams and covered chins
and necks with flavorful juice.
That led to a dilemma. We had a small, raise-bed plot due to
our topsoil- challenged circumstances. Based on past plantings, I’d left plenty
of room between seedlings so they could stretch, grow, and still leave space to
harvest ripe tomatoes.
That year’s timely, ample rains and the perfect addition of
cured chicken droppings inspired legendary vine growth. The intertwining plants
were over three and half high by three and a half feet wide. That’s a minimal
estimation since it’s hard to tell how tall the plants might be if they weren’t
weighed down by humongous orbs. I couldn’t get through that green jungle without
playing a contortionist game.
My visiting mother explored the maze and discovered scores
of ready- to-pick tomatoes. Other than the fun of digging hills of potatoes, I
don’t think there’s much my mom likes better than finding every ripe tomato on
eight very crowded, over-grown plants. She turned into a tomato General Patton
as she stood outside the fenced garden and directed the placement of my feet
and hands so I could pluck every mature fruit she’d spied.
“More to the left, down a few more inches, don’t step too
hard with your right foot, stretch, can’t you see it, oh look, there’s a great
big one on the other side of that plant,
watch out, you’re bending that branch, oh can you get all four of those and
pass them to me….”
I decided I was playing garden “Twister.” My limbs knotted
so I barely kept my balance. However, in the real Hasbro game, you don’t have
to worry about destroying producing tomato plants. The worst you can do is
bruise a fellow player or black an eye.
By the time I followed all Mom’s directions, we’d filled a five-gallon
bucket two days in a row. Taking our harvested trophies into the house, we
rinsed, blanched, peeled, and quartered them until I had six large freezer bags of ready-to-turn-into-salsa
frozen tomatoes. I had to recover from that spine-twisting garden game before I
could lift the jar-filled canner from the hot stove.
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