Little Green Tomatoes

Haiku for my little tomato plants

Poor green tomatoes
Planted too late to grow red
Reach for fading sun

I guess I planted them a little too late. Everybody else has harvested theirs and removed the plants from the garden. Mine are still striving to grow up and become nice big juicy red tomatoes but summer is over. Unless we get a month of Indian Summer (fingers crossed) they will never grow up to become edible fruit.  Just sad little green tomato babies.

I drew this as a meditation after a frustrating day (more about that in a minute). I sat down outside and started drawing the middle of the plant, looking at it like a jigsaw puzzle, where each intersecting shape was a puzzle piece. Every time I reached another intersection I followed that line to the next. Eventually the puzzle started fitting together. But the sun went away and it was getting windy so after I did about 80% trying to accurately capture each little leaf and stem (amazing variety of charming leaf shapes on tomato plants!) I quickly sketched another 20% to fill it in so I could go inside. This Jigsaw Puzzle method of drawing I came up with is really helping me to understand better what I draw–especially when there are layers and layers of shapes. (Raffine 6×9 sketchbook, Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers Ink, watercolor)

My frustrating day involved typical contractor bad behavior– not finishing a job, not calling when they said they would, leaving holes that were supposed to be patched, making me stay home all day waiting for their return to finish which never happened, leaving a mess. Drawing helped me let it go, as did this quote I found in one of my old journals:

“Cheer up! Life isn’t everything.” (Mike Nichols)