Monday, May 4, 2015

Life finds a way.

The jungle of tomato plants that my kitchen had quickly become,  had been for some time now, straining against the ever dimming light, as more leaves grew and the crowd of plants thickened and making quick work of the newspaper pots that suddenly looked pitifully small. It was time, I insisted, my plant babies insisted (shut up, they love me, I love them, DO NOT JUDGE OUR LOVE.) It was clearly time for them to fledged and go into the garden plot that I had spent the following week or so "clearing" (I act as if I felled trees and cut sod, there hasn't been native nature on this land for easily 150 years), preparing the soil and then building the trellis (do not fret friends, an exciting descriptive post about rebar and how I got hit in the face with a pipe is coming soon!) And Spring had finally sprung and you could just see the upward trend in temperature and good weather.

IT WAS TIME. And so I spent a lovely tuesday digging deep holes, plopping in 18 tomatoes and then tying them up. Yes it was a bit windy and I might've had a light jacket on, but these are hearty little plants! I had hardened them for days before and they were ready. READY.



Guess what happened next.

It was not time. Mother Nature laughed and we had 3-4 record low days, we're talking 38 degrees, Freeze warnings everywhere but the 5 Boroughs. It was a hot mess, but I guess actually a cold mess. To top this off when it wasn't windy and cold, it was windy and rainy. Wilted, wet leaves stuck together. Gah.  GUY COULDN'T CATCH A BREAK.

Everyday, shivering, I was out there tying them back up, trying to poke and prod them back towards the land of the living, swearing, pouting a bit and convinced that the months of having a mini-grow lab in my kitchen was for naught. This magical cost saving, grow everything from seed and get exactly what you want, was a misadventure if there ever was one.

Don't ask for a photo of the after. I was at points ready to just walk away and pretend I hadn't put so much energy into the sad pile of tomato-like things my plot had become and you don't make scrapbooks of things that make you cry. Or at least WASPS don't. We pretend they didn't happen, never could happen and that you're a damn liar for even suggesting the thought.

If not for my Dad, who convinced me to just wait a bit (something I'm admittedly awful at) and my plot neighbor who convinced me that it wasn't so bad and that life finds away, I'm almost certain I would've folded and at least gone and splurged on a bunch of plants for Home Depot or Lowe's and chalk it all up as shit happens. I guess a certain amount of credit goes to the tomatoes, those suckers are CHAMPS.


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