When I went outside this morning, I knew. It was time to harvest my tomato crop.

It’s been a long time since I had anything to harvest. The last time I planted a garden was more than 30 years ago. I was pregnant with my son Brett that summer. And—after picking and shucking and boiling and freezing 100 ears of sweet corn—I went into early labor. A cautionary tale to be sure.

But this year I decided to put out a few tomato plants. So I went to the farmer’s market and carefully chose four stout green ones. I placed them in the edge of a flowerbed in my backyard. “Grow, my lovelies!” I said as I tamped the moist soil onto their roots.

Within days, something (raccoon? groundhog? alien?) had dug up three of the four plants.

Now all my hopes were riding on a lone plant.

But I watered and watched and soon a tiny green tomato appeared. One tiny green tomato. It grew slowly but surely, and its visage began to change to a soft red. But still no siblings appeared on the plant.

So, I grew a tomato this year. One tomato.

But somehow I’m not disappointed. It’s a pleasingly plump little thing. I’ve been admiring it for days now. But this morning I noticed it was beginning to split open. It was time.

So I picked it. What to do with this solitary prize? Slice it onto a sandwich? Cut it into a salad? Slit it and fill the center with humus?

No, there was only one thing to do with this tomato. I gave it a quick shower under running water…and ate it whole, the juice running down my chin, the tender tomato meat still warm from the sun.

More is not always better; a little can be just enough. Sometimes the scarcity of a thing gives it a sweetness that can't be known in abundance. I learned this from growing tomatoes…er, tomato.