It’s a Good Feeling

I guess I am a serial killer of sorts.

Not humans or animals, well at least not in recent years, I’m talking about our chlorophylled friends of the plant kingdom. I mentioned in a blog the other day how I put a contract on an Elm tree that was getting too close and it became one of those him or me situations. It turned out that it was him. Don’t mess with me!

I picked up a couple of large tomato plants from the Co-op the other day. Normally I either start them from seed or very small plants. Partly that is because it is cheaper that way and also I sort of feel that I was involved in the whole growth process. Okay, it’s because it is cheaper. I have had some success over the years but if I am to be truthful, I have had more failure that success. Often I think it is because the soil is does not have the right ph balance and it may lack some of the important nutrients necessary for optimum growth. It could be that I don’t water enough or that I water too much. It might even be that our growing season is pathetically short.

I suspect that in spite of those excuses it actually boils down to my having a bad attitude. I really just don’t care whether we get tomatoes or not. Don’t get me wrong, I like tomatoes, tomato sauce and BLT sandwiches. The thing is that if I have a bumper crop that means I will be eating tomatoes every meal for a month or more. Sometimes they will grow fairly big, but not ripen on the vine and that means I have to have fried green tomatoes for every meal. Tomatoes are pretty cheap in the store and for the amount I eat I don’t mind paying the price. Yes…I know the home grown ones taste better, I just haven’t decided if all of the watering, weeding, covering is worth the taste difference.

Tomatoes are canned within four or five hours after being picked which means that if I picked a tomato in the morning and had it for supper, it wouldn’t be as fresh as a canned tomato. Plus, I wouldn’t have had to do anything for it to grow. These two plants I put in today don’t seem to be very happy with their new home. I can’t imagine it was any better on a rolling shelf at the Co-op than it is in my garden, but perhaps there has been talk amongst the other tomato plants. We will see how things work out tomorrow after they have spent a chilly, cold night in the dirt.

I’ve got some other plants that I’m not too sure about. Carrots, onions, cucumbers and lettuce will probably do alright; the ones underground have a better chance of survival I suppose. You will notice that I haven’t mentioned any flowers at all. I will probably plant some seeds, but over the years I have found that they just seem to mock me by being miniaturized versions of real plants. I look forward to the fall when they freeze to death.

I look forward to next week when it will be dry enough for me to spray some poison on the dandelions. I don’t care about the poison going into our water supply, because I have a feeling that my little bit of weed killer is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to toxins in the water. Yep, I hope to see some shrivelled up, suffering weeds late next week. It’s a good feeling.