THURSDAY IS T-DAY!

This Thursday, May 17 2018, is a BIG BIG  DAY

at our house. It, with its festive air and it's promise

of future delights, sort of reminds me of the "hog

killing days" down in W. Texas, when I was a kid.

"T-DAY IS A'COMIN'..."

Yes! Thursday is TOMATO PLANTING DAY !!

 (No, we don't plant in the middle of March

and have to cover our plants with blankets the 

next night.)  

At our first home here in town where we lived

twenty-four years, our four big elm trees in the

backyard (where the boys had tree houses)

got the Elm Disease...and just up and died.

We cut them down and dug the roots out and

there were holes big as hand grenade craters

across our backyard. The boys hacked away

at those giant stumps and finally just buried

them.

Enter the FARM BOY---ME. I landscaped the 

whole backyard with flower beds/garden

combo. Then planted tomatoes and watered

them often with Miracle Grow liquid tomato

fertilizer...careful not to make my "Koolade-

looking" fertilizer bucket too blue.

I had big glorious tomatoes galore over there

with more than we could eat. Many

long-forgotten friends showed up.

THEN...we moved to a bigger, newer, nicer

home, north of our old place about four

miles. Ah, but though it was beautifully

landscaped (with plants and bushes all

over), EVERYTHING, including flower beds

was totally graveled...or paved.

Thus, for us, tomatoes were history. And

my friends, we know store-boughten tomatoes

are "nothing to write home about."

That was the status quo from 1985 to 2004...

when one fateful day I came across a Florida

company that offered big heavy plastic boxes

about 28 x 14 inches---for growing all kinds of

veggies on one's back porch..or wherever.

WOW! You order them, fill them with dirt,

and there is a lattice thing in the bottom

about three inches up and water goes down 

there through a little plastic spout, 'til it gets

three niches deep and them a drain starts 

to leak and you quit watering.

Your dirt will last five years or so unless you

get some virus or something contaminating it.

You order a planting kit from EARTH BOXES

each year, with a little bag of Dolomite to mix

into the soil, and a little bag of 7-7-7 fertilizer

to layer on top of the soil on one side, away from 

the plants.

With the permission of "Management," i.e. B.E.,

I ordered five boxes that year with planting

kits @ $240.00.They are about fourteen years

old, this year. We have had many years of 

marvelous tomatoes!

It's the tomatoes we're after, not peas,

beans, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, bell

peppers, okra, cantaloupes, watermelons---

you can buy all that at the Farmer's Market.

But not tomatoes. Vine-ripened, juicy, flavorful,

home-grown tomatoes...check the vitamins

and nourishment in one.

So our youngest son, Brian--- (the guitar 

professor)-- who already has his vines in,

is coming over Thursday with TEN PLANTS,

and a valve thingie which is needed for our

auto-watering system, which he devised.

We will plant, and talk in the shade, for it

is getting warm now in these parts, and

there will be dirt all over the driveway, and

plastic trash from the kits, but it will be

a grand old family time...and a bit

traditional by now! 

We will have a Garcia's Combo Mexican

plate to "fortify ourselves," and when it

is all over, late in the afternoon, we will

sweep up the debris...and sit back and 

smile, thinking of that blessed day, along

about July 25" when we will have our 

first tomato...sliced up good and proper---

covered with cottage cheese...and 

coarse black pepper.

By Mil

14 MAY 2018