As frost time comes closer, I bring in the tomato plants I seeded in July, and I set up the greenhouse for winter.
The bugs and I will fight there until the new year. It will be a fair fight up until then, but they will begin to win as January ends, their ability to breed outlasting my ability to keep up with them, or my hope of overcoming them.
I could, I suppose, eliminate them with poisons, but I prefer to just clean the tomato leaves and stems every few days. The insects are part of a psychological system as well as an ecological system I set in place each year, a system that acts as a timer and a guide.
Throughout the fall and early winter, I can pretend I am lost in a seasonal wilderness, suspended in time. I have escaped the lush expectations of summer. I can hide and rest. I don’t need to produce. I can build energy. I can wait and plan.
In this hermetic endeavor, the tomatoes, the whiteflies, mites and aphids are my allies. I don’t need the tomatoes for my survival. Their fruit is a gratuitous response to my awareness. And so the bugs are not really a threat. In fact, they keep me on my toes. They are a gauge of my interest and the quality of my hibernation. As long as I hold them in check, I know the trajectory of winter is on the rise.
Once the insects get the upper hand, however, I know my resolve is weakening. I know I am getting restless for spring. And the tomatoes, of course, know too. By the first of March, they become tired and mottled and ragged. The season falls apart, decay tips the balance of winter, and I grope to find a new purpose. I am less dependable and caring. I am looking elsewhere.
Bill Felker