Tomatoes. The star of the garden. They can be rather diva-like – the heirloom varieties especially. For four years straight, for instance, I tried to grow Cherokee Purples. I think we got half a dozen fruits off them. While they were tasty, they were too much of a pain, so I set them aside.

This year, I tried to limit the number of varieties. Ha! Just kidding! No, really, I did, picking the ones I thought would be best for eating, canning, making sauces, and so on, a mix of determinate and indeterminate varieties, and a mix of things that would mature from early to late season.

This year’s varieties: paisano, skyway,valley girl, early girl, mortgage lifter, 4th of July, sungold, indigo cherry drop, gladiator, oh happy day, big beef, sweet million, park’s whopper, season starter, legacy, corleone, dixie red.

I transplanted the majority of these in April, and they are doing very well.

I even found the first fruit out there.

And some art, courtesy of Mother Nature.

With the appearance of the first fruit, it is now a race between me and the pests: who will overcome the odds against them and be crowed master gardener? I’m afraid we will have to wait and see how the season progresses.

Still working on editing some videos. it would be nice to be able to devote some serious time to learning the software – I picked up Vegas Pro (thanks to Stacy for that recommendation, via her kids) and we’ll see if that’s a tad more friendly to people who just don’t have the time to get really into the guts of Premiere.

Until next time, peeps: be well.