You like tomato, I like tomahto

When I was a little girl, my family would visit Great Uncle Sam’s farm in southern Minnesota.
Sam had a small farm with several hogs that seemed as big as horses to us; a collection of chickens and ducks, and fields planted with a tangle of strawberries.
We were frightened by the gigantic hogs and a little intimidated by the cranky ducks that would chase us across the yard.
We were really there for the strawberries. Sam’s land was perfect for growing sweet, dark, palm-sized berries. Our group of cousins would spread out like field workers and scour the fields for the berries, returning with sunburns and berry-stained fingers and faces.
Ever since that time, I’ve searched for strawberries as richly sweet as Sam’s, but over time, I’ve gotten used to the idea that I traded the fruit and vegetable bounty of the Midwest for the scenic bounty of Colorado.
The only strawberries I grow now at 8,600 feet are the tiny wild version with raisin-sized fruit that blanket the ground under our aspen trees. Still, l crave those Minnesota berries, along with the tender yellow sweet corn with kernels as large as Chiclets and bulbous tomatoes that grew in the black soil of our barely tended gardens in Iowa.
So this year, instead of depending on farmers’ markets, I’m growing my own. Tomato, that is.
I have one tomato plant in a pot on my deck. Every day I chase the sun, moving the pot around the deck so it can soak up every minute. At night, I tuck the plant in under the eaves, protecting it from wind and hail. I water it and fertilize it and worry about it. I’m become obsessed with its well-being.
My attention has paid off - in a few short weeks, it has grown three times its size, and today has a dozen yellow blossoms, promises of fruit to come. I wait impatiently for the first tiny green tomatoes to appear. When that happens, I’ll have to compete with other tomato-lovers – the black bears that patrol our neighborhood looking for a quick snack.
They’ll have to fight me for my tomatoes.