Elegy to the Tomato Plant

I finally pulled up all my dead plants yesterday and it reminded me of this photo from about a month ago. It's mid-January and one of the plants wasn't wholly dead. It was a three foot straggle of brown vine with two small branches near the end that were still green. No tomatoes were on it, but it was preparing to bloom again, six small buds ready to produce a couple more tomatoes the size of air-soft pellets. I pulled up the plant anyway. It was making a mess of our front porch. I did feel a little guilty; after all, it had hung on all this time. But practicality and the desire not to have feelings for something without a soul pushed me on and now it's well buried in the tall red trash can downstairs. It was a valiant little plant and it managed to produce these four dainty tomatoes before it's final demise. I'm not growing tomatoes again. The pain of their struggle against the elements is just too much.