Some neighbors may think I’ve gone off the rails when they see me hitting my tomato plants with the morning paper.

They could be right, but not because I beat my tomato plants.

My next door neighbor is the one who suggested I use a newspaper to hit the non-producing vines on my four-foot high plants.

That was after he saw me spank them with my hand.

Hitting them apparently stresses the plants and helps with pollination, so now I have tomatoes although they are still green and low to the ground.

When I told my Hennessey-turned-Durant friend, Roe LaPorte, about my tomato dilemma, he showed off and gave me some of his homegrown variety.

They were perfect.

Bright red lucious slicers.

Then he gave me advice.

His tomato growing advice came from Old People he’d doctored in hospitals/nursing homes in the greater Durant and Texas area.

So, Roe, now known as The Tomato Whisperer, said, “First off your plants aren’t getting enough sun. You should have planted them on the south side of the house.”

Hedidn’tsayIshouldn’t have planted them in the shaded flower facing the north, but I guess that was implied.

The Whisperer said the skins on my tomatoes will be too tough even if they ever get ripe.

“Do you have water in the back yard?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, and wondered if that faucet worked.

He said I had to follow his directions.

“Get some weed killer.”

“Sure.”

Four weeks later and I still hadn’t gotten it so he “could only do part of the job” when he came back.

The Whisperer unloaded a dozen cinder blocks and stacked them in a six by six square in the back yard.

He’s due back in two weeks with more.

Roe gave me more information than I can remember, and I finally got the weed killer last week so I could get rid of the grass in the middle of the cinder blocks.

I also got a call from a neighbor lady who asked what I was going to do with all those concrete blocks stacked in my back yard.

“A swimming pool,” I wanted to say, but didn’t push my luck.

I’m already known as the Crazy Old Lady who beats her tomato plants. I probably should also stop watering my tomato plants at midnight. It seems to wake up all the neighborhood dogs.