I know many people who are not religious in any way, except about fresh tomatoes. For them, a gardener without tomato plants has no garden, and a summer without fresh tomatoes is just an extension of winter.
As everyone knows, all serious gardeners grow tomatoes. Well, no, actually not. I have an uncle in Michigan (which is Garden Valhalla--people have thrown punches over certain varieties of turnip seeds, for god's sake) who grows acres of flowers, but not a single vegetable.
But I think I get it. Most Michiganders have huge vegetable gardens (except in Houghton, where the tender seedlings are crushed by icebergs). Michigan gardeners usually struggle to give away all their surplus, so maybe Uncle Tom gets all the tomatoes he needs as gifts.
I myself am a Tomato Cultist. I can't stomach supermarket tomatoes anymore, and I don't want to can my garden tomatoes. All I want is to pull fresh ripe tomatoes off the vine and eat them, then and there. Sometimes I'll manage to carry a few tomatoes into the house for salad or stir fry. Usually I just stand in the garden and wolf them down. I only hope that, if plants are indeed sensitive, they take benign pleasure in my ecstasy.
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