You say tomaaato, I say tomahtoe...

Bambi is a beautiful story, one almost every child hears or sees when they are very young. Those beautiful long eyelashes, and the sad story of loosing her mother to the nasty hunters. Then they add to the misery by having the cute rabbit, Thumper tugging at our heart strings. Don't believe it for a minute. Those deer are blood sucking leaches.

I've grown tomatoes over the years in the backyards of the various houses we lived in. We've now been in this house for 19 years, the longest we've lived anywhere. I had attempted to grow tomatoes when we first moved here but it was during one of my busy periods at work and they quickly died of benign neglect. Over the years Nancy has had varying success with her flower gardens, the most difficult problem being that deer love to eat some of the flower buds. At times over the years they have completely decimated her flower garden. Her greatest success has come this year when she learned to put soap on a stick in the garden. The smell of the soap keeps the deer away. About five years ago I tried growing tomatoes in pots, close to the house, thinking they wouldn't dare come right up on the porch to eat my tomatoes. Oh you trusting man.

The tomato plants grew well that year and after about six weeks I had six healthy plants that were sporting lots of flower buds. another few weeks and every one of those buds had turned into golf ball sized starter tomatoes. I was on my way to a bountiful harvest. Ha! In one night the deer came in and completely wiped out every single tomato that was growing on the vines. That was the end of that experiment. So after years of longing for a decent tomato, I decided this year to do it up right. I dug a 12 x 20 foot patch in the back yard and planted twelve tomato plants. I got smart too. I put up a fence to keep the deer pests out. There is no punch line here. I finally have lots of tomatoes growing. The "Better Boys" are doing well and I've already had a few off the vines to test them. In addition I tried a few heirloom plants and ate the first of the "Black" variety today. Very sweet, ripe and juicy. Finally, victory!