Tomato saga Its been four months since the husband and I moved into our new home. We have welcomed some guests and family alike in this time. And very happily so. Also welcomed the neighbours beautiful cat every now and again and with it; her very royal attitude. Its been great. Really. Not a word of complaint. Youd be happy to know that the household appliances have generally behaved themselves too. No conniving plans to oust the Shahs. Not yet anyway. Although,in saying that, I must add, every now and again the extra smart TV gives us a bit of his Samsung attitude. He is future proof after all. But I think Im getting around to his high definition demeanour. He is largely forgiven, simply because he has been displaying some priceless World Cup football moments. Yes. Ill have to let him be for now. Ya....... The back garden is coming on just fine. The gardener has done a sterling job for his buck. Hes planted some bedding plants with fore- thought . They have so far meticulously produced their flowers in tandem. One blossoms and the next withers. There always is a bit of colour. The sun has been shining and the Northern Ireland summer has been everything but predictable. Its been a dream really. Except of course for the tomatoes. Yes. The tomatoes..... You see friends, I have always wanted to grow my own fruits, veg and herbs. Thats been my dream. Cook what I grow. Eat what I cook. The complete circle of life. Yes. Recycle. Grow, eat, grow. Simple dream. So of course with the advent of spring this year I bought my very first tomato seeds. The kind gentleman at the garden centre pointed me towards the right ones. He showed me some pots, some soil, some tomato food and some grow bags. He explained how I needed to spread the seeds onto the soil and then water them and then watch them grow into young saplings. Once they are a few centimetres I must ( MUST) transfer them to grow bags. Silently I wondered why. Because to me it made no sense. But I did not protest. The man in the garden centre was my tomato messiah and his word was my gospel. And so I did just that. Well. Almost. I say almost; because my downfall has always been my over confidence. If it werent for my all so self assured attitude Id be tomato rich by now. I did all as told except, I never transferred them into grow bags! Never. I just let them be in the pots. And instead of using tomato food I used chilli food. How does that matter I thought. Its not like they really care. I mean, If I can have Indian food and Japanese food and Thai food and Italian food then why cant tomatoes eat chilli food? You see? Simple logic. What does that garden centre man know. He just wanted to sell his products. If it werent for my intellect, he would have convinced me to buy a whole lot more products. And hence I did exactly what my tomato messiah asked me NOT to do. Well. A few months later and my tomato seeds turned into young shoots with leaves. Initially green. And then the leaves went a bit purple and yellow. Well, thats ok, maybe they are Mediterranean tomato seeds. Always a bit more colourful and rebellious, thats ok. Ill just let them rebel. And all this while I was blatantly ignoring the gospel. Some water, some chilli food. Yes, I took advise of other friends and started supporting the stems with sticks. And the leaves grew bigger and taller. A few months passed without much change. Its Summer now and I have a tomato plant. With green and purple and yellow leaves. A few yellow flowers have just started appearing. I was generally happy and proud of my handiwork. Until last week that is..... I incidentally visited a good friends house and noticed in his very posh garden ( and green house) a very healthy looking chunky plant held within a GROW BAG, and, AND... And it had tomatoes on it. I made a mental note of this chunky plant and compared it with my hippie, size zero, bohemian excuse of a tomato plant and sighed heavily. It was a blow. I could picture that garden centre guy mocking me. I shook my head in disdain and continued polite conversation. I was so happy his tomatoes were growing whilst mine were barely existing. It was a very hard evening. I came back home and apologised to my tomato plant. And then I drank 2 glasses of wine and watched some football. My husband says thats the best way to forget all sorrows. It worked. It took me a better part of 2 days to recover. I had barely just about got over the chunky tomato plant assault when I was hit by another stomach churning blow..... A dear neighbour, and good friend of mine was heading away on a holiday and she very kindly dropped her plants at my doorstep. She asked me to have them. They were of course tomato plants.....yes they were. Two. MASSIVE. HEALTHY. CHUNKY. AWESOME tomato plants. Staring at me. In their pristine beauty. Green and glossy. Exquisite. I thanked her. I did. I left them in my back garden. Not too close to my tomato plants. Well. Theyd never get on anyway............ And so I have a back garden full of plants and flowers, 2 chunky tomato plants, 2 very lean hippie tomato plants and as yet, no real tomatoes.........I now feel sad. Very sad. The hubby looks at me and offers me a glass of red wine. hi honey. Why do you look so sad he asks. come here. Lets watch the final moments of this match. BRAZIL has very nearly defeated COLUMBIA. Leave your plants alone. Theyll grow if they want. If not, we can always buy tomatoes Hes right you know. Brazil looks good.....
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 21:55:36 +0000
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