Wanted to share an interesting garden story with you all. Fitting since there's not much happening in the garden right now anyway, so to make a short story long:

Last May I set out some tomatoes I had started in the greenhouse from seed in March. Lots of different varieties and most made it to the garden or to the Master Gardener Plant sale and "gifts" to friends. I had 2 remaining Cherokee Purple so I jabbed them in the ground in one of the Greenhouse raised beds.

Now, some of you may know the Cherokee Purple is an heirloom tomato and supposedly prolific in this area and takes well to the southern heat. Supposed to be flavorful, too. My success with them in the garden was dismal. They barely produced fruit and they made horrible looking Charlie Brown Christmas tree style plants.

Insects loved them tremendously, and though I polled each bug I plucked from the plants about what they thought of the flavor, I didn;t get much feedback. So, try as I might, I after several months I ended up throwing up my arms at the end of the season and declaring, "Heirloom, scheirloom and good ridance," and plucked them from the ground.

The ones I'd left in the greenhouse never amounted to much, either. Not one tomato came off those measly bushes all summer. So, with nothing better to do but entertain my pre-winter blues I didn't rip out the two bushes in the greenhouse. Instead, I pruned them back to 18 inch nubs with a few small branches. Sort of like pruning a first year fruit tree, ya' know.

Well, here's where the silver lining appears. The bushes grew and grew, produced heavily the last two months and are still cranking out vine ripes at the rate of 6 to 12 a day. Take a look:

Here's a medium sized one ready itself for the plate:

Here's my youngest son nearly invisible in the 'mater wall:

Needless to say we're loving eating vine ripe tomatoes in January and it was SO cool to have them beside the turkey on both Thanskgiving and Christmas. The surprising part about is that these 8 foot high and five foot wide prolifically producing plants sprang from measley bushes that had been pruned and almost destroyed.

Oh, the joy of gardening . . .