The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

When I started two tomatoes from seed who-knows- how-many weeks ago, both seeds sprouted and grew into healthy plants. The only difference was that one plant grew very quickly - its stem stretching proudly towards the sky - and the other plant, while very green and vi- brant, stayedhellip;well, small.

I kept the two in pots in- side for two months. When the time came to transplant them, the tall plant was push- ing four inches. The smaller plant was two centimeters high, max. I'm serious - that thing was puny!

I only had space in my garden for a single tomato plant, so I planted the large one and kept the small one inside just in case.

About a week later, the tall plant's leaves turned yellow. The stem grew limp. I gave it extra water, plant food, even milk - but to no avail. A freak freeze killed it off.

So I planted the small one in its place.

After a week in the ground, the tiny plant still wouldn't grow. By the sec- ond week, its lower leaves were tinged with the same shade of yellow I had noticed on the tall plant. By the third week, every last leaf was yel- low, and I needed a tomato plant for fear of losing the bet I had put on the success of my garden. So I found a likely seedling - a vibrant volunteer offspring of the monstrous tomato plant that had resided in my garden the previous year - and planted it next to my dying squirt of a tomato.

That seedling wilted five minutes later. I kid you not.

I tried another one. That one went limp as well. I was running out of volunteer seedlings, so I propped this one's stem up against a rock and splayed its leaves out in hopes that a little photosynthesizing action would perk it up.

Strangely enough, it worked.

But even stranger was the fact that after a week or so, the leaves on the tiny seedling began to turn green again.

And now, as I type this, my 'tomidget' plant is fully three inches tall. It has done more growing in the past two weeks than in the past two months. It sports several sets of healthy new leaves and might eventually grow taller than the volunteer seedling, which has also flourished admirably since its scrape with death. So why am I writing this? After all, I've done more ex- citing things this week than putter around my garden. I'm guessing that you would have much rather heard about my time at All Wheels Weekend, or the baby robin that recently hatched in a nest built on top of a light outside our garage, or (pos- sibly) my misadventures with microwave popcorn. To the average person, there are few things more boring than tomato seedlings.

Average people, please accept my wholehearted apologies.

But I think, in a twisted way, there's a moral to the Tomidget Saga.

I will never know what made that little tomato re- cover from what must have been the same malady that destroyed its taller, stronger sibling. Extra water? Could be, but I don't remember giving it any more than the other plant. Maybe its roots hit a nutrient pocket in the soil. Maybe the volunteer seedling had something to do with it. Beats me.

But in the end, I think the whole thing boils down to this - miracles happen. Obstacles can be overcome. So whatever you do, don't lose hope.