So, so cold. It’s June 14th and the cold and damp continue to seep under the door jambs and through the window sills. Because of the unpredictable humidity in the region, it always feels colder than it might actually be. We are still wearing hoodies and pullovers. I have my favorite blue sweater still out although it’s usually put away for the season by now. I love to roam around outside on our property in bare feet, but I still have my boots on over my thick socks which are pulled up past my ankles.

The gray sky is endless. Every morning since before Christmas, we have gotten up to gray skies and threatening rain clouds. Driving the kids to school is a dreary event and even continuing on to work is not very inspirational. Would it hurt for the clouds to part and for glints of sunshine to cut the highway and make us commuters smile?

Morning radio shows do their best. They are one, one-liner after another hoping to get us to crack a smile. Mostly, they revert to celebrity gossip and it’s inevitable that the celebrity being exposed that day is in Hawaii or in the Caribbean, some place warm and enviable.

But although I can turn the heat up in the car, put on my blue sweater, and put on my Mariners baseball cap to keep the heat in, what about my tomatoes?

Like I said, it’s mid-June and my tomato plants look like pea plants right now. Normally by this time they are plumping up, greenish-turning-a-little-red and overall looking robust and ready to produce bushels for the summer.

Will this year be the year of green tomatoes? I don’t believe that they will ever ripen. I very much dislike the taste of green tomatoes and I grew up with my mom frying and salting them and treating them like a delicacy, blah!

But it’s starting to look like I’m not going to have a choice. They will never turn red, I know it. I feel it. I will be stuck with pea-like tomatoes that taste all hard and chewy. I’ll try to pass them off as cherry tomatoes but no, my family will have none of that. Tomatoes are in every single one of my husband’s recipes (he’s a chef, yay me!) and we cannot live without them.

Are we supposed to buy our tomatoes from the store? I don’t think so. First of all, one word…salmonella. Secondly, it’s the exorbitant prices. Here we are paying $2.99 for four single romas. That’s not enough for even one dinner.

So I lament over my green tomato plants chilling outside when they should already be in full sun by now. I think a little boost of vitamin D from a burst of sunshine may uplift all of our spirits and perk up our tomatoes.

I won’t make it through the summer without them.