The tale of a tomato plant

I have mentioned that my friend Morna, has a beach house at a place called Windy Harbor, and it's called that for a very good reason, which makes this tale even more extrordinary.

Last year a little self sown tomato plant, one of the cherry kind, came up near the bar-b-que. Well this was fine and it grew and produced really lovely tomatos for Morna and anyone else who wanted some. Becase this is at a beach house and not occupied all the time, the garden does not get regular watering, and here in WA we can go for months in the summer without rain.

Well this didn't deter this plant and it continued to grow, 15 feet this way, 20 feet that way, up over the back of the house, under the back porch and anywhere it chose.
All the time producing large clusters of delicious fruit, it was so lovely to pick a sun warmed tomato, or two or more and just eat them straight from the plant.

A few weeks ago when Morna and I were down there, she said that she thought she would pull it up, as it was smothering everything else in the garden, and as it was so late in the season the fruit would not ripen. It was still covered in green fruit. I expressed the wish to have the green tomatos to make the pickles that my mother made every year, in fact that was the last thing she did before she died, from her mother's recipie. She had handed the recipie on to me , but as green tomatos, are not easy to buy in the shops I haven't had occasion to use it, since she died nearly three years ago.

Well yesterday Morna pulled most of it out, and bought it home, it almost filled the back of her SVU. Today we stripped the tomatos off, nearly 30 lbs of them, and I have spent most of the day cutting them, and the onions, ready for cooking tommorow.

Luckily, Morna had plenty of jars for me to put the finished product in.
My kitchen smells just like mum's did, all those times. Smells really do evoke such wonderful memories.

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I had a great day yesterday, I love to have the children come, now that Marcus only lives a bit over an hour away, we get to see each other much more often. The other two boys are about 3 1/2 hours, so although you can do it in one day, they mainly only get down on long weekends or holidays.

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The cobbler turned out beautifully, and yes it did rise up, even though I am on the this side of the world, so thank you Ann for the recipie.

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It takes a long time to grow an old friend.