Is it worth it?

If you've dug deep in my blog, you would know about my ongoing tomato experiment. For the last three years, when the inevitable first frost is called for, I go out in a frenzy to save my tomato plants. This past year, I cut down and hung up plants in the garage to vine-ripen (not nearly as tasty as sun ripened, though). My three year experiment, however, is to save the plant through its suckers. I will cut of as many perfect suckers as I can, then place them in water on the window sill. You'll notice that these suckers, when cut off, look like the transplants you would buy in the spring. By the time of early spring, if the suckers haven't died yet, they'll be full of roots and ready to be planted. These tomato plants have quarter sized tomatoes on them while the other plants have just started to bloom.

The problem of it all is whiteflies. In the house. Yikes. It's inevitable you'll have an outbreak of the little hellions sometime, and they won't leave. They'll leave little sticky droplets everywhere around the plants, too. So before you think to yourself, "My, what a great idea! I'll have homegrown tomatoes almost all year!" think for a minute. Long tirades of tomato death-threats by my wife "I'm gonna drag them tomatoes outside and let them freeze to death, then I'm gonna burn them to kingdom come!" made this experiment a bit stressful.

Maybe a big, juicy, sweet, blood-red bundle of summertime pleasure might make her forget for awhile...