Look what I found in my garden this weekend.

Normally, I’m jealous of those fancy gardeners who have green thumbs and red tomatoes during our county fair in mid-July. I’ve never, ever been accused of being a gardener.

My mom is. And my grandma’s garden was a wonder to behold. I remember her garden could probably be measured in acres instead of feet. (Please note this was my perspective as a 5-year-old.) She had rows and rows of green beans. I remember sitting on the carport with my cousins and aunts snapping beans. And the peas? I remember eating a lot of them before they hit the bottom of the bowl. It was like a true-to-life Blueberries for Sal except there were no bears and the blueberries were peas. And I remember my grandma bending over in the garden weeding and weeding and weeding.

Maybe that memory is the greatest, because I still have a hard time planting a very big garden for fear of spending days on end weeding. My garden is not acres big. Really, it’s just a tiny little spot that my son helps me till up and I stick plants in the ground and cross my fingers. But this year? This year, it was warm in April. I mean really warm and I felt like being out side and getting started. So I did. And a few tomato plants? I ain’t no dummy. Every year a few of them die (remember the no-green-thumb thing?) and I’m stuck to nursing a plant or two, just hoping. This year I planted early AND planted 12 plants. And lo and behold, it has paid off with early tomatoes.

Yes, I can see that they aren’t very large. And if truth be known, one of them looks like this:

But approximately 2.3 seconds after the first photo was taken, we ate the cherry tomatoes. It tastes like summer.