True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes

As Guy Clark wrote, “Only two things that money can’t buy / That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

I arrived home from a vacation/brother’s wedding last night, and it was too dark and buggy to venture out into the garden. So first thing this morning, out I went and found a bounty of tomatoes on the vine, plus the last few beans of the season.

It’s been said before — many, many times by Garrison Keillor — that one of the wonderful things about living in a place like Minnesota is that we don’t take things like homegrown tomatoes for granted.  There’s a short window of time when they’re available.  That window has just opened, and it will slam shut in about a month.  Then all that will be left in my garden is the squash and pumpkins that I hope will last into the fall.

We’ve started the long descent into autumn.  It may be 95 and humid out, but my kids are talking about school everyday.  We’ve got our plans for the State Fair.  Grandma just bought them all back-to-school jeans.

But, we’re not quite there yet. For now, we’ve got homegrown tomatoes.  Here’s Guy Clark’s homage to them:

Get you a ripe one don’t get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin’ & diggin’
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes

Homegrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark

Photo taken on iPhone 4 with Hipstamatic; lens: Jimmy; film: Ina’s 1969