Summer 2008, I stumbled upon a lonely plant lost on my college campus. I took it under my wing and brought it home. It grew, and grew, I was convinced it was a tree, lost as to what else it could be. I had never ventured into gardening, other than taking plants that I bought at the store, and planting them in the ground, but that had a name tag on it.
Anyway, I decided to name it Edward because I figured it was a tree, and would live forever, much like Edward Cullen. Anyway, I realized it then had a vegetable smell to it, and we concluded that it was actually a tomato plant. I didn't really know much to growing a tomato plant, but I transplanted it into a large pot on my porch. My mom urged me to bring it when it would rain, or storm. It finally stopped growing taller, but still now flowers. Until one day, in September, it bloomed a flower into a tomato. One lone tomato from my Edward tomato plant. It was delicious, however.
A couple months later, in the cold of winter, my mom found "Tomato Seed" packets in the dollar store. She figured that in the spring, I can start another tomato plant, or several. So I did. I bought a long window box and planted 8 tomatoes in them. Once they got to a bigger size, I transplanted them outside in the ground, with manure - Gross. But they really got a boost from it and I was probably one of the few people who had tomatos that year.
Incase you had failed to know, summer 2009 was the summer of the tomato blight. It traveled through the air and was a fungus that attacked tomato plants. The farm I worked at fell victim to this blight as well and lost mostly all of their tomato crop. But not me, I had heaping quarts of tomatos each week. I couldn't eat them as fast as they were growing. Also by the way I ended up adding about 4 more plants to my garden because I had grew some extra for my aunt and kept some of the ones she didn't want.
This year, I started the seeds again, but was away at college, trusting that my mom would be able to care for them. However, they all died at just the seedling stage.
Broken hearted, I resulted to getting some lone plants left at my job. They were tomatos, but didn't have a tag in them so I was excited to take a risk on what kind they were, such as cherry tomatos (like the ones I was trying to grow), big boy's (like a normal tomato - but there are about a dozen different types of 'regular looking tomatos'), sun golds (yellow, non acid tomatos), or plum tomatos.
I planted them in my garden, and then used the dirt from the deceased tomatos, to plant an ivy plant for my nephew - that I took off my ivy plant and rerooted it, so he could have one too (Mine is named Peetey, and his we named Patrick). Although, weeks later I saw a little sprout, and then another, and another. Days passed and these sprouts grew. They were in fact, tomato seedlings! I checked the other plant that I had used the left over dirt in, and as it would appear, there were seedling sprouts in there too! So now, in addition to the 6 in my garden I now have at least 8 in pots on my deck.
6 of the 9 already have tomatos growing, which my nephew decided he'd pick one day, and try to eat, even though they were still green! The other 3 are very small, and may, if they last that long, get tomatos in mid september. I should replant the ones in the pot because they ended up taking over Patrick's area, in which he is now dead, and are all in one 6inch pot, which is not ideal for tomatos. One tomato plant should be in at least a 10 inch pot - however mine are doing great! (as pictured!) I did already pick 1 another day, but me and Norman ate it. There are a couple orange ones, that aren't quuiite ready to be picked. Probably tomorrow!
In addition to my tomato plants, I started zucchini this year. However, I dont see even the start of a zucchini. I have flowers already, but no zucchini. So if all else fails, I will have at least zucchini blossoms that I can fry - which I hear are pretty good, but not quite what I wanted.
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