Yes Virginia - in 2009 Everything's Coming Up Tomatoes!

Above: This year tomatoes are the idols of the hour at this local blogger's home.

All photos copyright 2009 by Mizu Sugimura.

Earlier in the year, fellow TNT blogger Stephanize Frieze wrote about her intention to put in an old-fashioned Victory type garden as a way of coping with rising food costs and a down economy. Well, I admit I gave her idea some thought, but neglected to allow proper time in advance to prepare a patch of soil that would allow for me to give the concept a good try.

The opportunity to be responsible for faithfully caring and watering for some food producing green plants was not completely lost however. With a little help from my local Rite-Aid store's selection of tomato starts and a lot of full sun on my deck we are now rolling into that part of the gardening season where the fruit of my labors (see 3 photos accompanying this article) is becoming more of a reality!

So while I proved to be far less ambitious than my colleague, the summer of 2009 will still yet go down in my memory for as long as I live, irregardless of whether I choose to continue over the coming years and replicate this healthful and nurturing habit. There was also an unexpected harvest which heralded a brief return of some foggy memories from my salad days - as a handful of short scenes emerged from the past of my late bespectacled Japanese-American and Boeing engineer father hurriedly shuffling out our screen door to the backyard to religiously water and nurse his own plump little summer red objects of delight.

Next year perhaps I ought to think about adding a few green heads of lettuce ...