Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

– Thomas Jefferson. Notes on the State of Virginia.

A year ago, with Jefferson’s eloquence firmly in mind, and wishing to hold, within myself, a “peculiar deposit” of “substantial and genuine virtue”, I resolved that I should “labor in the soil”, and grow myself a tomato.

Necessary accouterments assembled, I dropped some seeds into the soil, and watched in silent awe as they erupted skyward.

The plants grew to maturity on the sunward side of my townhouse where their abundance burst forth with unrestrained vigor!

Alas, my happy circumstance as a grower of tomatoes was not to last. The home owner’s association took issue with my “vegetable garden” (in reality, two plants in a flower box). Their tyrannical buffoonery demanded that I remove my wondrous bounty to the shaded side of the house, where it could not offend the mistaken aesthetic sensibilities of my neighbors.

Events too many and too tragic to enumerate here ultimately resulted in the sale of this townhouse and my subsequent emancipation from the despotic mandates of any home owners’ associations.

My new domestic situation involves an area in which I think I might be able to grow a few tomatoes, and perhaps some other vegetables besides.

If I am able to keep ahead of the weeding, I hope to find time enough to dust off this long disused blog, and keep you abreast of my horticultural adventures.