For those of you who may not know, I am infamous for not being able to keep any plant alive. After years and years of failure, I should know better than to try actually growing anything, but I guess hope springs eternal and I'm convinced that someday I'll actually be able to keep something alive for longer than a couple of months. Apparently, that day has not come.
At the beginning of every growing season, I entertain the idea of planting produce. You know.. tomatoes, zuccini, cucumbers, etc. It just sounds like such a lovely idea to go out to your garden and pick yummy things you can actually eat. However, I never actually get around to it (shocking, I know). However, this past spring we went to a home show and ended up bringing home a couple of free tomato plants, so I figured that tomatoes were as good as anything to start with.
My mother-in-law suggested planting it in an upside-down tomato planter which sounded like a grand idea to me. Afterall, it would prevent two things I hate -- digging and weeding. I searched around and around and finally found an upside planter at Target, planted my little tomoto plants in it, found a place in the back yard where it got morning but not afternoon light and started to water it faithfully.
My mother-in-law suggested planting it in an upside-down tomato planter which sounded like a grand idea to me. Afterall, it would prevent two things I hate -- digging and weeding. I searched around and around and finally found an upside planter at Target, planted my little tomoto plants in it, found a place in the back yard where it got morning but not afternoon light and started to water it faithfully.
Amazingly enough, it actually grew. In fact, for about a month and a half it thrived. It bloomed, it set fruit, I had little tomatoes growing and I was feeling terribly proud of myself.
Then, one day about two weeks ago, I went outside to water it and all the leaves had completely dried up. Once I removed them all, the poor plant had not one single leaf left. I have no idea what happened, but it was starting to get up over 100 degrees here, so my guess is that it just couldn't handle the heat. Or I wasn't watering it enough. Or both.
Not wanting to give up on my little tomatoes completely, I continued to water them for two weeks until they turned bright red (still no leaves). At this point, I decided to harvest my first produce (the largest was only 1.25" in diameter) and finally give up on the poor thing. I ate my little tomato (the only one of the four big enough to taste) and it was actually pretty good, considering.
So, in honor of my poor tomato plant, I'm posting a pic of it right before I harvested.
Oh well.. I still have hope that someday I'll be able to grow something.. guess I'll just have to keep trying..
3 comments:
Here's a tip for you. I have a couple friends that have a garden. What you need to do is have a cover that will shade it from direct sunlight but allow just enough in to nourish it. Go to my cousin Siboney's blog and you'll see what I mean. Keep at it!
Hey....we were doing great until we've got some big critter eating the zuchini, the lettuce and the leaves off of the cuke plant. Our upside down plants are doing OK, but only the tomatoes survived. Mostly, learning to grow stuff for me is just trial and error and a LOT of reading.
Did ANY of us inherit Dad and Grammie's knack??
I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one, LOL! Glad you found me, blogs are a great way to keep up!
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