If you use taut strings and a ruler to plant tulips and blast a leaf blower for 20 minutes to move about 100 leaves from the street next to your car, today’s column might not be your cup of decaf tea.

If you get a bit giddy when you see a redbud tree seedling has popped up right in the middle of a garden bed that needs a little shade, let’s talk.

Today’s column is inspired by Michael Hull, who sent in a photo of his cherry tomato plant. There it is growing up in front of a door, having planted itself in a crack in a sunny spot. It was lucky to have a gardener with the sense to let it grow when he saw what it was.

Hey, as long as you don’t need to use a door, its frame makes a great place to string some twine for support.

His tomato plant is as healthy and happy – maybe more – than my coddled cherry tomato plant in a raised bed with organic compost and a commercial tomato stake. OK, to be honest, my plant didn’t even start producing tomatoes this year until a hail storm knocked it to the ground.

Making the most

Do that lemons and lemonade thing in your garden.

•If a branch falls from an ancient oak, why not make it a focal point of a garden bed? Tuck in a few hostas and impatiens, and it looks as if it’s been there for years.

If it’s a huge branch, use it for extra seating near the fire ring or edge a mulched path in the backyard. I’ve got one of those in my driveway that will make up one side of a new garden bed next spring.

Sure, you can fight nature and even control it to an extent, but you can also work with it. Lazy? Probably. Cheap? Sure.

And immensely practical. Why pay someone to take something like that away and then go buy something approximately the same size to do the same job?

•When leaves fall, rake them up and then use them underneath (costly) mulch around your bushes as a weed barrier.

•Have a corner that’s difficult to mow?

Dig up an Annabelle hydrangea sucker and plop it in the spot – perfect for rounding off an awkward corner.

•Tired of edging that path? Use extra sedge or liriope plants to separate walking areas from beds.

Send in that photo

Pick your favorite produce and pose with it. Email your favorite jpeg photo to garden@jg.net and put “Veggies” in the subject line.

Please include your name, the name of the posing person or pet, type of produce, where you live, a phone number and a brief description of what you do to make that tomato or pumpkin all plump and delicious.