Chipmunks are monstrous, sneaky, lowdown, greedy tomato thieves. But they were not the main threat to my summer farming.
The little critters irritated and out-’munked me in stealing unripe fruits from the cherry tomato plant I’d rooted in a patio container.
Despite my weeks of harrumphing, the Battle of Weedy Gulch ended in appeasement. Chipmunks are like gravity – impossible to resist. Appeasement was the only option. So, the critters dined. I was their maître d’.
The experience brought revelation, as might meditation or 40 days in the desert. Call it my 120 days on the patio.
I’d attempted container tomatoes twice before, with unhappy results: yellow or brown leaves, or fruit rot, or fungus. Failure.
This year’s sprout grew into a handsome plant. It produced more than a hundred mini green tomatoes, even after filling chipmunk cheeks, with no fungus or rot. Yet only 12 ripened into red orbs. Twelve.
Revelation may enlighten but not always please. Here’s what I now know: I have never successfully grown tomatoes. I cannot grow tomatoes. I never will grow tomatoes.
I kill tomatoes.
Squirrels drank the water out of our tomatoes in Kansas City but we had enough for ourselves only because I had 12 plants.