Although I am currently having remarkable success with my $6 basil plant, I usually cannot grow anything. I am the most untalented gardener I've ever met. I don't know shit about ... well ... shit. I wouldn't know what to feed a plant if it spoke to me and told me. I don't have a green thumb; I have a black thumb. Everything I plant in the ground, dies.
I am probably going to cry when the first frost arrives. Oh, sure, I'll move my basil plant inside and hope for the best over the cold months. Remember, though, this was a $6 investment. I'm not going to kill myself over the basil plant. I will cry, though, over the fact that my fresh tomatoes will now have to be make-believe fresh tomatoes from the grocery store.
Please don't even try to convince me that a tomato grown down south or way out west and transported here via truck is anywhere near as fresh as the ones my pals snap off the vines and hand to me. I'll be stuck with those transplant-tomatoes all winter, and I will cry a little bit at every salad until next summer rolls around and, with it, farm-fresh vegetables.
So, thank you, my gardening friends. Thank you for making my summer worthwhile. I love you dearly, but I love the tomatoes ever-so-slightly more.
