When Vegetables Run Riot

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

I went down to a local nursery a week or two ago and bought a couple of tomato plants for my vegetable garden. Well, actually, it isn’t a vegetable garden yet. Our back yard has many plants in it, but none of them are edible. If I want to eat, I have to steal blackberries from my neighbor to the north, or grapes from my neighbor to the south. Fortunately, their vines grow along the fence, so the law of the jungle permits me the luxury of claiming whatever grows on my side of the fence as mine. Or, as a child might put it: “Mine, mine, mine, all mine!”

The law of neighborliness, on the other hand, compelled me to chat with my neighbors and discern that neither is concerned with me meeting my nutritional needs through fence-line gleaning (a grace also known as permission). That works for me, too!

Meanwhile, I bought these cute little tomato plants, the varieties of which I have no knowledge (my natural state with most matters, come to think of it), hoping that they would (a) not die, and (b) produce fruit in due season.

For the past two weeks they have sat in the kitchen window awaiting the day I would release them back into the wild. Miraculously, they have (a) not died, and (b) already borne flowers which will (cross your fingers) become actual tomatoes! Through the miracle of me not having killed them (yet), they have also grown from three inch beasties to monstrous plants, both over a foot tall, and one branching out (apparently more bush than vine).

Now I have to find spot in the back yard in which to plant them. The weather here has warmed up enough that the danger of frost or dangerously cold weather has passed. Tomatoes, it turns out, are originally from Central America and not overly fond of the cold. That likely explains why my tomatoes didn’t do so well when I tried to grow them in the Madison Valley.

It’s funny, though; I don’t know where to plant them. Our yard is populated with a wide variety of trees, bushes, flowers, succulents and the like – so food-bearing plants simply look out of place no matter where I put them. It’s almost as if vegetable gardens are required to have their own space, surrounded by chicken wire (to keep out the rabbits) and segregated from species that are more pleasing to the eye than the gut. Oh my.

Never fear. If there is one thing I’m known for, it is my fearlessness in bucking trends, breaking rules, and ignoring anything resembling taste (unless it involves edibles), so I shall find a wide spot that works for me (and maybe for the veggies, too).

Life is too short to fret details like where to put something in the yard. Certainly, we want things to look nice. We need to ensure that plants which need a lot of sunlight will have a space where that need is met. We want to make sure they are properly hydrated – not too much and not too little water. We want to make sure to keep pests at bay. Blood is supposed to repel rabbits. Well, I may be a bleeding heart liberal, but I also find blood somewhat repellant. Still, there are alternative repellants we can buy at the local garden center, so I can minimize my personal blood-letting (aka shaving) for now.

I confess I am surprised at this sudden interest in growing things outside. I have always found yard-work more repellant than blood-letting. I suspect my distaste at such things hearkens back to the days where yard work was anything but fun.

Now that veggie-culture (aka farming) is a choice and not something compelled by a foreign power we referred to as “parents” – it is less onerous and a bit more pleasant. It is possible I might even come to (gasp) enjoy being out in that wilderness we call the back yard and watching the young tomatoes at play. I wonder if momma tomatoes are as protective as momma bears; I’ll let you know.

For now, it’s time to catch up with my tomatoes, so I’ll ketchup with you later in this, our valley.