One of my weaknesses as a gardener is extreme resistance to pulling up perfectly healthy plants, even if they are crowding others. This aversion extends to volunteers, too. If I recognize a little sprout as a bean, squash, or tomato, I either try to transplant it or, more often, let it grow. How can I not admire the pluck of a plant that has taken root against the odds?
My frequent co-gardener, Treat, sympathizes with my attitude. Still, he has an easier time, both pruning back plants (even when they have blossoms or fruit!) and discarding volunteers, all in pursuit of a healthier, more productive plant and garden. Earlier this season, he cast a kindly but skeptical eye on all the extra little tomato plants I was nurturing. "You know they're probably going to be tough little cherry tomatoes," he warned me. "Unless they are heirlooms. No hybrid ever re-seeds as itself."
Of course, he was right, and I have spent considerable time this summer harvesting those tiny tomatoes: painstakingly plucking those plucky little pearls one at a time. (Because, of course I can't just leave them there!) There has been a yield of over ten pounds, but I know I'll never get them all. Maybe next spring, when the ones I missed germinate and start to sprout, I'll have an easier time nipping them in the bud.
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