End of An Era

Cindy's dad, Louis Dehmlow, grew up on a dairy farm in Illinois and remained a passionate gardener the rest of his life.  It seemed like he could make anything grow.  We lost him at the end of February, a week short of his 90th birthday.  Indiana was still covered with snow and tomatoes were only a distant dream of summer.

Lou was very proud of his flourishing upside down tomato plant a few years ago, especially when he heard that Master Gardener Cindy's upside down tomato was a scrawny specimen that managed to produce only one (1) tomato the entire summer.

He never let her hear the end of that one, but he took great delight in helping her install a drip irrigation system for his roses when his back problems prevented him from hand carrying water to them during Indiana's drought; it turned out that all the bits and pieces of a drip system was almost like a tinker toy set for an engineer like Lou.

He was an inventive, funny, wonderful man who cared deeply about his family and his garden, and we will all miss him greatly.