Tonight I needed “one small tomato” for a recipe. It’s the first day of February. In ninety percent of the rest of America, this would require finding a can opener or trying to hack through the skin of one of those hot house tomatoes with the nuclear-glow-red skin that sit pitifully next to the winter vegetables in the produce section. I, having lived a good life and being blessed with a Bay Area zip code, walked out on to my deck and picked a perfectly ripe, perfectly sized Early Girl off the vine that arches across the window next to the dining room table.
I confess, the green tint on my thumb is a recent acquisition. A few years ago, my mother, a certified master gardener, shamed me into growing a tomato plant. “It’s so simple,” she said. “All you have to do is plant it and water it.” This is the woman who witnessed me kill more vegetation than Agent Orange as I was growing up. It’s not the planting part that’s the problem. It’s that watering thing. If I were good at watering things, I could have a cat, maybe even a dog. But regular watering is a level of commitment that is beyond my emotional skill set. That is, until I discovered timers and automatic watering systems.
Now, thanks to the inventive genius of people who are even lazier than I, I have a semi-automatic drip system that keeps me in tomatoes almost year round. Well, half the year round. My drip system stopped working a couple of months ago. I don’t know why. I’m not an engineer. And you can’t really hire a plumber to come over to make sure your tomatoes get watered. Fortunately, this is the rainy season, and my watering system has been taken over by a higher power.
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