Saying goodbye …
Say goodbye.
Goodbye to the 10-foot tall tomato plants.
Goodbye to the 6 varieties of Heirloom tomatoes grown from seed, lovingly raised in the greenhouse last winter.
Goodbye to the lush plants around the tomatoes, including giant okra, parsley, jalapeno peppers and red bell peppers.
Goodbye to my towering jungle.
All because of HIM! And his hundreds and hundreds of cousins and uncles and nephews and babies.
Everywhere.
And I mean everywhere.
So one of my “guys” came over yesterday and ripped the guts out of my whole garden. And me, for that matter. It was hard to watch. 
So, with the truck full of my formerly beautiful plants, he drove off with what was the promise of my fall tomato crop — up until a week ago.
And I was left to squash and squeeze and stomp on literally 150 of those #$%^&*#&* bugs — just on the ground! And climbing on the empty tomato cages. I killed about 25 more today. I will check again tomorrow, but I think they are all gone or dead.
There are only 2 things left in the garden — the strawberries and the basil, which weren’t infested and don’t seem to have drawn them. My fingers are crossed for them. But I am diligently checking them several times a day.
My goal: To eradicate the *&$#@%*&# bugs so that I can plant new teeny tiny tomato plants this weekend for a fall crop. We are blessed with two seasons here and the time to plant is NOW. I figure if a few bugs show back up, I can handle killing them on a few couple inch-high plants! The jungle, not so much.
I WAS planning on an amazing crop from my huge existing plants. (Did I mention that? sigh.)
Ok — I am not over it. But it’s gone. So, now I am making a list:
some compost
some new mulch
a few new marigolds (fat lot of good THEY did keeping the bad bugs out!)
Tomorrow is a new day.
