The first year in our previous house I tried to grow tomatoes; it was a sad attempt in a very shady lot and by the October frost we had a harvest of 2 mealy fruits. When we moved to this house in December one of my first habits was watching the sun patterns to see if I could try my farming skills out here. Luckily we have great sun in our back yard and I started dreaming of my bountiful harvest of juicy homegrown tomatoes. Our neighbors have a Black Walnut tree on the property line so I opted for using planters on the porch and in early May I purchased 5 beautiful plants from the Farmer’s Market.

Now, they are about 5 feet tall and going like gangbusters and we will soon have dozens of Sun Sugar cherries, Vintage Wine heirlooms, Yellow Pear heirlooms, Dr. Wyche Yellow heirlooms, and Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.

That is if the tomato bandit that is my child leaves any of them on the plant long enough to ripen. When we play outside I’m in constant vigil near the three pots as my 3-foot high tomato snatcher goes in for any fruit that is even remotely turned color. She pops them in her mouth then spits out the not yet ripened prize. If we win our tomato battles we will soon have a great harvest.