This year I'm playing suburban farmer after having decided to plant tomatoes once again. I've been trying to get the children interested in helping. Actually, it's "the child", since, at a year-and-a-half, Lexie's pretty much a lost cause, and just wants to throw dirt around. At 4, Trevor enjoys watering the plants with me and watching the little tomatoes grow on the vine. When I ask him if he wants to eat them when they're ripe, he scrunches up his nose and declares that he doesn't like "pomatoes". His loss.

Of course, since I'm eccentric, I'll have no garden variety tomatoes growing out back. No way. I've gone 100% heirloom. They're harder to grow and usually take longer to bear fruit, but you get wonderful, odd looking, old time varieties. I know that they have them in stores now, but while they're good, they're just not the same as a similar example plucked from the vine just minutes before. This year I've got two varieties growing: the old favorite Brandywine, a 19th-century type that turns out pink with red stripes; and something called Purple Calabash, the seeds of which I bought because the website described them as looking like something out of a 16th-century herbal. As near as I can find out, they're a very old variety, and, while thought to originate in Mexico, were grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello in the late 18th century. How cool is that?

I'll post an update when we actually get to eat some of them, which at the rate they're going could be some time in September. I bought the seeds online from an outfit in Missouri called Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com), which must have thousands of different types of seeds for heirloom vegetables, herbs, and even flowers available for sale. When I get some more room to garden (hopefully in the next year!) I'm going to go nuts and grow all kinds of strange stuff...