by Steve Hansell

Created on: August 23, 2010   Last Updated: September 09, 2010

I really love homegrown tomatoes. They are what inspire me to start the garden every year.

I don't have the greenest thumb, or the most patience, or much of a clue when it comes to gardening. I try really hard, but there is some secret that has gotten by me that keeps me from being successful. It may be organization, or maybe it's folow through, but whatever it is, I don't know it.

Because I continually experimented with new places in the yard for the garden, my wife made me build a raised garden bed, and that is where I would have to plant my crops for the coming year. We would put it in a place in the backyard that would get full sun and be close to the hose, so it would be easy to water.

My 9 year old son and I worked tirelessly on our homemade design to build up a nice, tall, raised bed, and filled it with store bought dirt that was packed with all the proper nutrients and such that our tomato plants would need. We only occasionally got sidetracked into a dirt ball fight. (I usually won, but you have to watch your back with him...)

We then went to one of the best nurseries in town and got a couple varieties of the “Cadillac” of tomato plants (well that is what the lady called them, anyway) as well as 4 different kinds of pepper plants. We bought tomato cages and fertilizer. We were ready for this year.

So, three Big Boy tomato plants and three “heirloom” tomato plants, planted after the last possible frost, fertilized on schedule, watered and weeded daily, there wouldn't be any slip-ups this year.

“Another flower today, Dad! And there are little peppers on the pepper plants! I am going to make ketchup this year”, my son would report daily.

We watched the progress of each single tomato as they grew larger and larger. It wouldn't be long now.

There was a small disappointment: one of the heirloom plants was growing little, salad tomatoes. We didn’t expect that, we thought they would all be big, “beefsteak” tomatoes, but the first ones to get ripe were those little grape looking things. That was ok, though, we picked them and put them in a few salads, they weren't that good, but they were ours.

But the big ones, they were something to behold. They burst off the vines and we had to tie them up so they wouldn't break off! A few started to get a few orange streaks. Everyday, my son would ask me if it was time to pick them yet.

"Not yet, son, they need to be just right." I would confidently

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