May 24, 2012

our garden granddad

We planted our tomatoes some time ago.  They are growing so fast they need to be tied up weekly- as is our grass but that's another story. And as you can see it won't be long before we'll have our first red fruit. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to biting into my first tomato, yum! And this year we will be using nine foot poles because our plants kept on falling over last year; ugh what a mess it was.

It won't be long before this baby turns red!

Each and every year during tomato season I get a bit misty thinking about our very first year here when we planted our first garden in our yard. It was tended by us with care, believe me we didn't really have many friends being new to this community. So the tomatoes kept us occupied when we weren't going back and forth to the baseball field with Matthew and Eric, where by the way we did eventually make some friends.

The guardian of the garden...Linus our eldest cat.
We live in a very rural area. One day I was sitting out on the back porch in a big t-shirt and my undies reading a book in the sunshine and something caught my eye.  There in the garden I could see the top of the head of an old man bobbing up and down atop the rows of my tomatoes. He was checking - actually inspecting my plants. I went in told Bill and put on some shorts and we walked out to meet and greet our garden guest. As it turns out he was the Great-Granddad of two of the boys the kids played ball with, his grandson was one of the few men we had met and considered a friend in the short time that we had been living here.

One of our many rows of tomato's they're a little more than 3 feet tall now. 

We chatted and he asked us about our family, what church we attended the usual and necessary niceties of southern conversation and we filled him in about where we had come from. He stayed for a while so I gathered that we passed his inspection...hehe! I think he was impressed that we were from NY and knew how to do a garden but he was playing it close to the vest at this point. He was actually quite adorable and at the very least in his mid 80's by my estimation. So we talked about our garden, if we fertilized or not, how early we planted , if we were organic, planted heirlooms  or if we used compost then after a time we said our goodbyes and went on his way.

This is the leaf of an heirloom tomato call German Johnson 
The very next time we went to a baseball game with the boys we saw his grandson whose my age and he was grinning from ear to ear. He recounted this to us, he said when his Granddad got home from our house he took out his phone book and called some the other old timers from our community and told them "you better plow under your gardens gentlemen, those Yankees down the road  have a garden that will put y'all to shame!"  


Beautiful flowers yes?
Granddad visited most every year after that and our friendship bore fruit. He got a kick with the fact that we knew what we were doing. Bill and I both grew up in the suburbs and always had gardens we weren't city dwellers but Granddad had an idea of New York and he was sticking to it! And Bill and I? We came to look forward to his yearly visits and were tickled that he enjoyed us and taking a peek at our garden. Granddad lived until he was 100, bless his heart.

16 comments:

  1. What a cool story! Your tomatoes look fabulous, I wish mine looked like that, but tomatoes weren't really meant to grow in the desert. I'm lucky to have the garden that I do have, although with our intense heat I can grow some fabulous chiles!

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  2. Great ideas, like always! I am very much impressed with your work..

    Garden Centre Belper

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  3. What a nice story---I so look forward to your posts!

    Those tomato plants look fabulous......my brother-in-law grows some beauties too, but all in a greenhouse. Our season is so short...for example, it was 31 degrees Celsius here on Tuesday and last night we had frost!!! We have threat of frost until around mid-late June each year.

    Take care

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    1. But it soooo beautiful where you live Kathleen, at least your blog pictures reflect that! Here is soooo hot during the day most summers we can only tend to the garden early mornings or late in the days usually around 7:30 or 8:00 when the sun is weak. I guess we all have our gardening crosses to bear....

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    2. Yes..you are right.....I must say, I don't think I could take the intense heat..not used to it, I suppose. I sure wish I could be close to you when the tomatoes get ripe....we would put up some big batch of salsa!!!!

      Have a great weekend---I think Roger will be working most of the weekend...we have a forest fire burning nearby and he is involved with that. It's been burning since Tuesday--lightning strike. It's really windy again today but we are supposed to get some rain on Sunday, so that will help.

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  4. Hello! Your plants look great. The problem with small towns is that everyone knows everyone's business, which I'm not a fan of. Plus, I like my privacy. However, I'm happy to hear the man liked your plants.

    Precious Monsters

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    1. I came from a small beach town up on Long Island to this small so I'm pretty used to the small town vibe.

      Southerners are very polite and very curious about any new neighbors, but that wears off after a while and they move on.

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  5. Jen, the close up photos are great. But, really, I stuck around because of that story. I loved it!
    m.

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  6. I love how you intertwined the beautiful pictures with a beautiful story!

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  7. I'm jealous of your garden! I can only imagine the beautiful tomatoes you will be eating soon!

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  8. Jen, That is fantastic...how lovely to meet someone who you became so fond of and also nice to prove others wrong at times, isn't it? you ol' northerner :)

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  9. Your garden is gorgeous and your tomato plants are HUGE! I have never seen one taller than 4 feet in Iowa! I plan to plant mine soon...I'm a little behind. LOL! ~Angela

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    1. It's the long hot days here in the south Angela, that and we till tons of leaves from our trees into our soil twice yearly. Our plants grow somewhere between six and seven feet tall, crazy tall right? When I lived in NY they never grew that tall either!! That's why we plant less than 20 plants they are packed with fruit; more fruit than the two of us can keep us with. What we don't give away to neighbors and friends we can so we can have them to eat over the winter.
      Shame I can't e-mail ya some....

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  10. What a sweet story! And your garden is wonderful! We've lost most of ours due to pickle worms. Have you had trouble w/ those? That tomato will be delish! Great job!

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  11. What a nice story about that sweet old man. We have a neighbor who used to do that. He'd drive over our lawn right to our garden...lol. The only way he got away with it was because of his age. Unfortunately he's in a nursing home and ow we're the ones who go visit him. Your tomatoes look fabulous! I hope you'll get a bountiful harvest...it sure looks like you will! :)

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