Hard Pruning
Sweep the spent jacaranda blooms from the sidewalk. Weed and top dress the vegetable bed with compost. Clear out the grass stalks gone to seed from underneath the laurel hedge and the purple hopseed bushes.
These are the sorts of chores I would have happily ignored in my younger years. I’d see some commercial with a hapless dad seeking guidance in Home Depot for his crabgrass problem, and it would make my blood boil. No way was I going to turn into that guy. Now that I think of it, I spent a lot of time focused on who I didn’t want to be.
About a month ago, two of the kids and I drove up to Santa Monica to visit the local Tomatomania pop-up. I’ve learned to temper my excitement at seeing all the varieties of tomato seedlings with epic names like Lava Flow and Blood Moon, and we came home with five sensible choices.
It’s hard to fight off that buzz, though, driving back with new seedlings in the back seat, head filled with visions of a garden overflowing with homegrown heirloom tomatoes. I’ve also learned that feeling conveniently disappears sometime early in the stretch of 60, 70, 80 days of daily maintenance – watering, pruning, hornworm hunting.
The garden has taught me a lot about paying attention, even appreciating those unglamorous stretches of everyday tasks.
As far as knowing which tomatoes to plant in our coastal climate? That came from a conversation I had with a worker at a local nursery. The marine layer keeps nights cool, he said, and big beefsteak type varieties would just sit and wait for heat that would never really come. Smaller fruit, earlier maturity.
The younger version of me definitely would have been too cool to ask for help. The younger version of me also grew crappy tomatoes.
