Winter Tomato

In one of my past lives I was a tomato farmer, I'm sure of it. 

Recently, when I downloaded the pictures from my phone to the computer, I found this tomato plant. I took  it on November 23rd, 2010. It was a brisk November day. But there it was - growing up between the sidewalk, blossoms and all.

Tomatoes are in the nightshade family, same as potatoes. Tomatoes can live a long life, because they come from South America. As we know, near the equator it stays summer year round. One tomato plant I had in a large pot lived for two and half years. When I finally unraveled it, it was a good fifteen feet long. The only reason it died was because I let it. Two weeks before the school year started, my teaching job went into hiatus. So it wasn't watered for a week and died. To tell you the truth, I was kind of relieved. I tend to have too many things going on...