09/28/2025
This spring a plant self-seeded in the greenhouse in an area where greens were recently pulled out.
Normally it would have been weeded out but because I was out straight planting, watering, and seedling the rest of the gardens this one was allowed to thrive largely due to my neglect. Throughout the season I knew it was still there but stinging nettles created a tangle of prickly barriers intertwined with it, so I continued to avoid it and focused my attention on the other parts of the farm.
This week my eye was drawn to the nest of nettles where a pumpkin-orange, oversized donut shaped, science experiment of a tomato caught my eye. Held up to the light, you can see right through the center. Weighing in at 2lbs 4 ozs, it is both grotesque and beautiful at the same time, and somehow even though I had little to do with its development, I’m more proud of this one than all the other tomatoes combined.
Another surprise was finding a tomato hornworm munching on the black beauty tomatoes at the very end of September in Maine.
