Every year in July there comes a day when I am convinced my tomato plants are not going to be productive. I see their struggles with weather, chipmunks, birds, bugs, and weeds, I count how few of them are on the vines, and I sigh to think this is the year when there will not be a whole lot of tomato sauce in the freezer.

Every year in August I have enough tomatoes to pave the kitchen floor. The two chipmunks spent most of their time fighting each other; the birds ate the bugs; the weeds were not that hard to keep up with; and I didn’t see many tomatoes because they were still small and green and hidden under leaves. They grew, they ripened, and here they are. Oh tomatoes, I am so sorry to have doubted you. Please accept this poem as an apology.