"What you see depends on how you view the world.  To most people this is just dirt, to a farmer it's potential."                                                Doe Zantamata

Hang in there, fellow gardeners. Spring is truly on her way. It may seem hard to believe for those of us with snow still hanging around, but it's true. So what to do while we're waiting?

March is the time to start your indoor seeds of tomatoes and peppers. Tomatoes are best started late in the month to avoid ending up with spindly plants in May.

Would you like to grow a very special tomato plant? I'm going to tell you how. This is called the Selke biodynamic cherry tomato plant. The seeds for the Selke are produced by a man named L.A. Rothraine in Bradford, Pa. About twenty years ago I was at a biodynamic workshop and L.A. was the keynote speaker. He told us about his very special cherry tomato plants and how they can grow to twelve or fifteen feet tall and produce a couple of thousand tomatoes (yes, I'm talking about one plant). L.A. Showed us pictures of these giant tomato plants and gave us each a couple of seeds to take home and plant. I was skeptical, not that I didn't believe that it was possible to grow such a tomato plant, just that I didn't think that I could do it. I thought it would take a gifted gardener to pull this off. 

 Nonetheless, I took my seeds home and planted them, first in the house and, when the time was right, in my garden. I picked the one that looked the strongest and healthiest and planted it exactly as L.A. had instructed. That was at the beginning of May. I looked at this tiny tomato plant and thought, no way are you going to be twelve feet tall. In early July I called L.A. And asked, “What do I do with this thing? It's huge.” He instructed me to support it with bamboo, which I did. But two weeks later my husband and I had to replace the bamboo with 2 x 4's. The plant did grow to be about 12 feet tall and produced over 2000 tomatoes.

Our tomato plant became an attraction in the neighborhood, especially for the kids next door who used to come over and feast on these sweet cherry tomatoes as if they were candy. And of course, they are – nature's candy. So, if you would like to grow one of these glorious tomato plants, write to L.A. Rothraine right away and he will send you seeds for the cost of shipping, along with instructions on how to grow one of these amazing tomato plants. The address is Highlands Star Seed, P.O. Box 990, Bradford, PA 16701.

Reflection: Everything depends on the earth, the soil, that substance that our mothers constantly urged us to wash off of ourselves. Yet, despite that upbringing, something in us longs to get our hands dirty, to get down on our knees and renew our contact with Mother Earth. What is that something? Is it the innate understanding that this substance is the true food of life, the source of all health and happiness, the stuff that allows human beings to keep on being? Maybe so.