JOY ALONG THE WAY: BIG GARDEN PLANS!

All you gardeners who put out dozens of tomato plants, yea, even one dozen or half a dozen, don't laugh. I am going to put out one tomato plant. I've been dreaming about it and planning it all winter long, particularly after I have eaten one of those tasteless, shiny, red globes at the grocery stores labeled tomatoes. The only thing they have that remotely resembles a garden grown tomato is that they are red.

So I called Sunny Hill and laid out my plans. "Now I want you to fill a big pot, probably about thirteen inches in diameter and fifteen inches deep with good tomato growing soil, with good drainage. I'm going to grown one tomato plant."

They didn't laugh but asked if I wanted them to just go ahead and put the tomato plant into the jar?" I said, "No, I'm afraid it might get crushed or broken in transit. I'll put out the plant myself." This might have happened, but the real reason was that I wanted to get my hands in that soil, smell the tomato foliage on my hands, complete an old, old spring rite even though it be in micro-ritualism.

It is not that kind neighbors and friends don't bring me beautiful garden-grown tomatoes, it is just that I want to see that plant grow, see the little yellow blossoms open and the tiny green globes form behind the blossoms and watch these little babies grow and grow, flawlessly, into a bright, red, satin-skinned, softball-size tomato, at which point I will tenderly pluck it and you know the rest. Steve and Viney have a vested interest in this plant since they did all the heavy lifting, so I might share with them that first ripe tomato.

I'm putting that tomato plant on my front porch where it will be kissed by the morning sun and vibrate to the songs of the robins and wrens.

If all goes well it will be a conversation piece for visitors even before they come in and get seated. I'll bemuse them with old tomato tales which they've probably heard before, my favorite one being that Grandma told over and over. She would speak of someone who fell off the rail fence into the tomato patch and ate "cooaddies" (that's what the early Blue Ridge Mountain name was for tomatoes) until he or she or both of them passed out. Grandma would rock with laughter at this. I never saw the humor and wasn't old enough to question Grandma. I think now that eating "cooaddies" at that time was tantamount to saying that the person so eating didn't have a full deck or had bats in the belfry since the "cooaddies" or tomatoes were considered poisonous. However, early superstition was that the tomato was called the love apple and those falling into a patch of them -- well, I dunno about Grandma's laughter.

Thomas Jefferson is said to be one of the first to eat tomatoes. I wonder how he approached it. A nibble at a time to see if anything happened or the whole thing, live or die? I bet Scarlett in "Gone With The Wind" would have eaten a tomato instead of that dirty carrot, poisonous or not.

I may get a little decorative trellis to support my tomato plant or just an old broom handle I've been saving because I just knew it would come in handy some day. If my plant succumbs to wilt, vandals or black birds, I'm going to sue! Maybe the EPA, AARP, ABA, AMA, AAA ad infinitum. Then there is the seed company, the weather bureau, the police department or, yes, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It should protect old gardeners against any real or imaginary tomato plant destroyers.

REJOICE!