Hello, my name is Schleprock, and I have the amazing ability to effect major climatic shifts in the environment. All I have to do is decide to go nutty with tomato growing, start hundreds of plants from seed, nurture and coddle them until they’re ready to go outside….and then *poof*, monsoon city! Works like a charm; I’m thinking of renting myself out to drought-stricken areas. I had thought I was relatively safe now, since all my tomatoes are in the ground….but I’m now picturing the newly emerging veggie seedlings floating off into the wild dirt yonder…….and yet again I found myself going out in the pouring rain to attempt to rescue trays of seedlings before they all washed away. Again.

To recap, I first ventured into growing things from seed last year, when trying to figure out how to grow the tomato seeds that my dad had brought over and saved from the Old Country, i.e. Ukraine. In the process, I somehow (ahem) managed to get a bit out of control, and wound up with maybe 50 or so varieties of tomato plants.

Naturally, last year in Chicago we had one of (if not the) shortest growing seasons on record, and so I wound up with not much more than bushels of green tomatoes in September.

Just as naturally, hope springs eternal, and so by the time March rolled around, I was optimistic. Surely this would be a better planting year! Surely I’d actually get some ripe tomatoes! Surely my friends would no longer be convinced that I was just holding out on them, refusing to share my bounty of garden-fresh tomatoes!

As if.

I would like to note here that EVERY single time I’ve taken out trays of seedlings to harden off, the rains have come. And not just gentle spring rains, or even relatively hard downpours. No, we’re talking the deluges that set my roof to leaking, that flood entire towns, that have farmers weeping over drowned fields. Not to mention the wind, that’s been strong enough to pick up the bricks holding down the seedling-covering tarp (I rigged up a very Ruben Goldberg-esque kind of contraption) and land it smack dab on a bunch of seedlings.

I did finally get the tomato plants into the ground……and on a lovely May morning, decided it was now time to liberate the flower seedlings from their basement home. Clouds appeared; I protected the flowers with boards. The rains came, I trotted outside to check up on the flowers, they were fine. Then the sheets of rain started coming down….and yes, I dragged all 10 or so trays of hundreds of seedlings inside, and almost wept. Tonight, having already nursed them back to health but not having had a chance to plant them yet, I dragged them in yet again. And am contemplating a stiff drink.

I think it’s going to be a loooong growing season………