Joe's Place

A view of ours truly with my ever-vigilant and trusty copilot enjoying the rather cramped cockpit of a U-Haul coming home from a recent adventure in South Central Texas.

The dynamic duo was on the way home from San Antonio after a couple of days off and a mission to help rid my Mom’s garage of excess stuff to recapture some new living space for her and my sister. And what didn’t get thrown away or donated went home with us, hence the need for the U-Haul truck.

The good news was that we were successful in our endeavors. The bad news was that after 1000 miles sitting with little seat adjustment, our rear ends were numb for the next week. But now the really hard part of our adventure- getting rid what we brought back or at least something getting rid of something else so that we don’t end up in the same situation. Stay tuned to E-Bay or Craigslist to see how we do with that.

Here it is folks. The moment that you’ve all been waiting for. We are now ready to unveil the fruits of hard labor — literally the fruit (ok vegetable). This single point in time where money, sweat and hard work have culminated into this single event. Let me have a drum roll please! I’m pleased to present to you our first tomato.

OK, OK it’s rather underwhelming I admit, but it is the Summer Sweet Grape variety, so it’s supposed to be small. That plant  just happened to produce fruit before the other two.

The good news is that from here on in we’re producing and the beauty of division starts to kick in so that we can begin to appreciate the true costs of organic gardening. But as a starting point, we’ve got roughly $100.00 invested in these things. So if you figure this tomatomidget weighs an ounce, you’ve got $100.00 divided by 1/16th of a pound or $1,600.00 per pound!! (Now I see why these plants are called “heirloom varieties.”)

Let’s hope the rest of the summer yields a bit more produce. At least the plants look like they might.

See you next time.

Happy Fourth of July everybody! Use care if you choose to use fireworks. And please don’t drink and drive this weekend.

Don’t give the hospitals or undertakers any of our business!