LETTERS FROM HOME: GOLDEN RULE: GIVE TOMATOES UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD...

(Just so you know up front, this is my annual whining column asking for free tomatoes. If you didn't plant any tomatoes this year, please move on to the next page.)

Let's just say the tomato gods are fickle again this year.

I'm not talking about this year's crop. From what I can tell, tomato vines this summer are as laden with red, ripe fruit as ever. This may well be a bumper-crop year.

I know how the tomato vines are doing, because I routinely check on them.

Not my vines. I didn't plant any.

Last year, I put two tomato plants in the one flower bed in our entire yard that gets any sun to speak of. And that's just morning sun. The rest of the day, there is only shade.

Surprisingly, those two vines did pretty well. They weren't heavy producers last year, but then tomatoes in general had a spotty season last year.

But the fact is we dug up the zoysia in the only part of the yard that gets sun so we could have a flower bed to grow flowers in what little sun our yard gets. Tomatoes are not flowers. Get the picture?

Besides, most everyone who plants tomatoes plants way too many vines.

Here's what happens when garden stores start stocking tomato plants.

Him: Look, Idell, we better get our Big-Better-Best Boy plants. These look really great.

Her: Hobart, if you live to be 101 you still won't get it through your thick skull that St. Patrick's Day is too early to buy tomato plants.

Him: So why do you think they stock 'em? Answer me that.

Her: Because they want you to buy them twice. You buy them now and plant them on the first sunny day. They get killed by frost. You have to buy them again. See? It's all marketing.

Him: Well, I think I'll go ahead and get a few plants. We might not have any more frost.

Her: After all these years, I know I can't stop you. But please don't buy 50 plants again this year, Hobart. You know we can't eat that many tomatoes. It's a shame they all go to waste every summer.

Him: I won't get too many this year, Idell, I promise. (Hobart picks out 75 plants -- just in case some of them don't make it.)

So when I'm driving around, I see well-tended vines with enough tomatoes to supply a canning factory, and I wonder: Why aren't any of those tomatoes finding their way to my house?

Sure, we could go to the farmer's market. You can get wonderful tomatoes there. But you also can get hoodwinked.

My wife managed to take time out of her busy schedule last week. The tomatoes, she was assured, were locally grown. I suppose if you happen to live in Little Rock that claim is probably true.

Both of us grew up with big gardens. We are spoiled by home-grown, vine-ripened tomatoes. I can eat four or five good-sized tomatoes at one meal. Easily. We are, as you might expect, spoiled. It's hard to find tomatoes that come up to the standards of Kelo Valley or Sweet Springs.

But we keep hoping.

Actually, what I keep hoping is that folks will realize, based on my annual tomato tirades, that the decent thing to do would be to bring me a few tomatoes from those sagging vines.

Not that beggars can be choosers, but don't bring me a bushel at a time.

And don't feel obligated to bring me a 30-gallon trash bag full of zucchini when you drop off a dozen or so ruby reds.

I have decided that when God created gardeners he gave them a zucchini gene that makes them automatically hand out summer squash -- and an occasional eggplant -- every time they give away tomatoes.

To me, zucchini are the tofu of the plant world. You can say what you want, but zucchini and tofu still taste like zucchini and tofu no matter what you do to them.

I'd even go so far as saying zucchini are the kudzu of American gardens.

So, if there's anyone left out there who thinks an ungrateful editor who prefers his tomatoes sans zucchini deserves free handouts, please let me know.

Don't forget: I can see your garden. I know you're throwing away a lot of tomatoes.

Idell is always right.

Or, as Hobart has learned to say after a few decades of marriage:

Yes, Dear.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.