G'day G'day Folks,
I have a tomato patch. In it are an odd collection of heritage tomatoes. Cherokee purple, Green zebra, Tigerella, Siberia, Brandywine purple, etc Growing tomatoes where I live makes no economic sense at all. For the cost of the tomato stakes alone I could have bought tomatoes for a year. So why is the activity of having a garden important? Once upon a time, I could convince myself that by growing my own I could have more variety. I mean, how else could I have a Black Russian tomato. It even felt good knowing I was preserving genetic material that could easily become extinct. However as the years pass I have noticed that these reasons become less valid. There is now a seed merchant in Australia that sells a whole selection of unusual tomatoes. Several local seedling merchants stock these varieties as a matter of course. As the old reasons dropped away, I noticed an important function my tomato patch fills for me. My love of tomatoes causes me deal with dilemmas. For example, this Summer has been hot and wet. And that means rampant plant growth and ideal conditions for blight. I don't like spraying. (You're talking to the man who at 14, much to his surprise, was instrumental in banning DDT in home gardens in New Zealand.) When I don't spray with fungicide the effect on the plants is devastating. So I have been spraying. The rampant growth also meant the old stakes I was using were soon out grown and I now have to replace some of them with 7 ft stakes. In one corner there were wild seedlings from last year that remained unstaked. I hated taking a grubber to those seedlings now rampantly sprawling all over the place and impeding the airflow thus harbouring the conditions that promoted blight. But I did it. What I have discovered is that tomato patch has exercised my values. I expect everyone can recognise in their own lives forced choices where choices simply have to be made. What I have recognised about myself is that I have been a choice procrastinator. I would, by inclination, put off choices, particularly those involving a values dilemma. {Maybe procrastination could be marketed as guilt phobia. 8^) } What I have learnt is that tomato plants have an incredible ability to adapt even after some fairly tramautic pruning necessitated by neglecting delateralling. They will survive and they will thrive. However, how much easier it is when I first establish the structure to allow fully for growth. How much easier it is when I first provide adequate space. Sometimes space is much more valuable than content. In a nut shell what my tomato patch has been teaching me is how much better it is to make decisions early based upon what will be needed in the future.