Friday, August 24, 2018

Accidental Gardening


I am not great at caring for plants. I do like flowers on our big front windowsill, but a lot of mine that I planted died this year in the heat, because I couldn't manage to prioritize watering them. But then a curious thing started happening. Plants started to grow! And live! And I hadn't planted any of them - perhaps this has something to do with them living? I'm not sure, and I'm not asking too many questions.

In the front, we had gorgeous tiger lilies in one of the pots in which I'd accidentally killed some ranunculus. Out back, poppies sprang up between the pavers. And then a tiny little tomato plant grew up between the square pavers and a concrete pad by the garden shed. I was really delighted by this surprise tomato plant. It looked like it might actually live, and I thought that we might get a few tomatoes out of it. Maybe I would make a salad? That seemed like a pretty lofty goal, considering my track record with plants since our children appeared on the scene. I imagined something with arugula, balsamic, maybe some goat cheese.

Well, I think we will be able to have a salad. And quite a few other things. Because that gigantic creature in the photo above is our tomato plant. I've named it Warren, because you could house a whole lot of rabbits under there, and no one would even know. I am absolutely flabbergasted at its size and health. It's like Little Shop of Horrors out there, except I didn't feed it blood. It got a little attention from my in-laws while they were here, but other than that, we've done absolutely nothing to help it out. I shoved a chair under one of the vines that was growing a lot of little tomatoes so they wouldn't lie on the ground and rot, but it became clear pretty quickly that there was no way to fully support the whole plant with that materials we currently possess. So we just let it go. And it keeps growing. I have no idea how many tomatoes are on it. My rough estimate is a whole lot.

I picked the first ripe ones today. They are slightly purplish in color and smell amazing. As far as I can tell from image searches I've done, they are black cherry tomatoes. Also according to image searches, we should have used something like lattice to support the plant. If another one grows next year, we'll try that. I am going to attempt to save some seeds, but I also have to be honest with myself and admit that I might forget where I put the seeds or I might forget to plant them. So I also intend to enjoy this accident of gardening while it lasts. It may never happen again.

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