death of a grape tomato plant

i routinely go to my backyard to work in the garden and am greeted by this sight:

my grape tomato plant, turned over on its side. my grape tomato plant is huge. not only is it tall, but it is a thick, tangled mass as well. it is unwieldy, and despite my best efforts at tying it down strategically, i have finally had to resort to propping it up with a stick:

this is not wholly effective either though, and the plant still frequently tips over, only less so now. i finally decided that i have had enough with this plant. maybe if it produced a lot of delicious fruit, it would be worth the hassle, but it doesn't. it took forever to fruit because it took so much of its energy to increase in size, and although has finally started producing fruit,the tomatoes are tiny and not too flavorful. it steals sunlight and space from the plants around it and i finally decided that i had had it with this grape tomato plant.

so, i dug it up.

and now it is gone. and my basil will actually see the sun again.

before



after

madeleine patiently looked on as i felled the tree.