The Spot.

For those of you who I know are going to go right there with that title, just stoppit. This is about tomatoes.

Mostly.

See, the other day (which was honestly probably, like, a month ago), something started to become clear to the people who see my garden the most (Bubba and me and our neighbors) - there's a magic spot in our yard.

A spot where, no matter what you put there, magical BIG things will happen.

Put a puny abandoned I Don't Know What Variety This Is tomato plant there - it will become enormous and try to swallow your arms when you go in for a tomato.

FEED ME, SEYMOUR.

Let those same tomato plants run rampant at the tail end of the season (so that you can have more enormous tomatoes, obviously) and big huge What Cho Lookin' At wolf spiders will appear there and stake a claim to the backyard.

Seriously. What ARE you looking at? You've never seen a giant spider weave a web? You need to get out more.

Plant melons - get huge melons.

Plant chard - the world comes to an end.

You see what I'm saying here - there's something about *that* spot.

Not that the rest of the yard is totally falling apart, but *that spot* - there's something to it.

Take this year's garden, for instance:

This is actually funny because this photo's 2 weeks old and all those plants are at least a foot taller now. Me? I'm the same height. Frustrating.

See, these are the tomato plants. They were planted at the same time, in the same mix of soil and amendments. Same everything. Even the two plants in the one bed there that are the same variety - something's going on.

And that something is because of The Spot.

We've determined, from lots of scientific research called Staring At And Judging Our Plants and Our Neighbors' Plants and Our Neighbors Doing The Same Thing, that this spot - the front spot on the third bed - is magical.


Don't believe me? Look at the same spot from four different gardening seasons:

I wish I could tell you which years these were from, but I'm not that good. I do know the last one is from two weeks ago, beyond that, it's anyone's guess.

See what I mean? What IS it about that crazy spot? My theory is that it gets the most sun, the least wind and feels the most love because the dog likes to shit right in front of it so every time I go out to the garden I first shovel the dumps so that I don't step in them as I intrude upon the plants to look for ripening tomatoes or whatever.

But I don't know for sure. Maybe the dog's dumps are magical? I mean, she certainly thinks they are, given the victory lap she takes after dropping one off on a walk.

It's an interesting life I lead, I know.

But, like last year for instance, The Spot grew the hugest tomato I've ever grown from a plant whose variety was completely unknown at planting time.

WTF.

And then it made all of these, too.

And this perfect one that I thought you should see again. Because it's so pretty and perfect. Did I mention that it's perfect? It is. PERFECT I SAY.

So, we've decided it's definitely a magic spot. I'm thinking of planting my wallet in there to see if I can't squeeze a hundo out of the yard. Or maybe my empty bottle of Hendrick's - see if I can't GROW myself a bar, since the one I'm trying to remodel in my house is apparently never going to be completely done.

Who knows! The fact is that we've established that there is a magic spot in my yard and I may use it for evil.

Or just giant tomatoes. Time will tell.