The Birth of “Off the Vine” – Looking Back, Looking Ahead

This update is written on Wednesday, February, 9, 2005. It is really very nostalgic to look back on our various Off The Vine articles – we felt that we knew so much about heirloom tomatoes at the time, but the intervening years have, I suspect, taught each of us so much more. Speaking just for myself, so much life has happened during that time – in 1994 our family had been in Raleigh for only 2 years. We were still adjusting to a very different culture in many ways – my job was significantly different from the one I had in Pennsylvania, our children found the school systems a bit of a challenge. My goodness, my daughters were 13 and 9, still “easy” to parent….here they are, 23 and 19, finished with the public school system – indeed, out of the house! We have gone from one dog and one cat to three dogs and a different cat. My music tastes have changed, we’ve become older, wiser (perhaps), and completely disenchanted with the direction of the culture in this country. In terms of gardening, I was in the midst of trying as many family heirlooms as I could get my hand on, and just starting to dabble in researching the older commercial varieties squirreled away in the USDA vaults. These days we’ve settled on a core selection of varieties that do reasonably well in our awful Raleigh soil, with the greatest enjoyment being in growing out those unexpected crosses or mutations, sharing varieties with other gardening enthusiasts – either seeds or seedlings – in other words, it is still fun, and still feels worthwhile. Garden Web and, less frequently, the discussion boards at Victory provide an outlet for my gardening thoughts and views. I’ve still yet to meet my good tomato friend and co-conspirator of Off The Vine, Carolyn Male. We are still the best of friends.

Neither Carolyn nor me has time, energy, or interest in doing another paper version, circulated newsletter. However, it seemed to be a good idea to use our past ranting as a kick off point to reflect on where we were at that time, what we’ve learned since then, and perhaps, write some new things on new topics – once we’ve caught up on the past, that is! If you are reading this, welcome – if you are a past subscriber to Off The Vine, welcome back. If you are new, it is great to have you here. It is important to keep in mind that these are our views, our opinions – you may agree, you may disagree – all of our views are important. It feels good to be writing again…….here we go!