The trouble with going away is that things in the garden can go adrift.
The trouble with coming back is that it may take time to lasso that which is adrift, stake it, tend it and water it.
It is then, sometimes, that one realises the value, the strength, and the downright tastiness of the plants and fruits which have survived.
Here are two kinds of tomato plants in my garden which were all but abandoned yet struggled on and fruited. I have grown neither before and they have toughed it out so well - and (what is more important) the flavours are so good - it's worth naming them.
First are Incas F1 Hybrid. These grow as little bushes. The tomatoes are plum shaped, moist and tender, with very little free floating juice. At least this is how these ones are. Indeed they are almost solid flesh - and delicious. They are about two inches long and are ripening to a chilli-pepper red.
Second are Dolce Vita (Lycopersicon exculentum). They are supposed to be greenhouse tomatoes and the trusses are supposed to be long. I know I shouldn't admit to having left this plant aside, outside, under a tree, with stem bent and broken at the base of the plant, then failed to water it so it lay abandoned across the gravel - but that is what happened. It has thirteen small trusses like this and the tomatoes (cherry) have developed such a wonderfully strong flavour, they are a burst of surprise every time I try one.
I'd recommend both. If they have done this well without attention . . . just think how well YOU could do if you grew them!
And, as a celebratory finale . . .
A strawberry plant that has decided to flower, for all that it's late September!
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You can find out more about why the tomatoes were neglected on my other blog, Esther's Boring Garden Blog - Saved by a Strawberry Flower.
9 comments:
Esther, Another rainy day today. That makes it four in a row and this is to go on for four more days. Glad there is an internet so I can garden “on line” on days like this. The benefit is that I get to look over past postings of those like you that I follow. The tomatoes look good to me. The time away didn't seem to damage them. Here at the lake it is so hard to grow them because it just never seems to get really warm in the Summers. I am going to try again next year. I have already prepared a special bed for them where it stays warmer. Time will tell! Jack
Hello Jack.
We, here, are short of rainy days.
The tomatoes there are - taste good; and there are a surprising number of them after all. But imagine if I had watered them! And imagine if I had fed them (as one is meant to - but these haven't been fed even once) just think how good they would have been then!
Good luck with your tomatoes next year.
They probably wouldn't taste nearly as good fed and watered and cared for! My neglectees are courgettes (which I like) which have become marrows (which I don't). Fortunately some colleagues will take them off my hands.
Hello Sproutling.
Courgettes are towards the top of my favourite vegetables list too. I learnt to like marrows a few years ago - but how much depends on what they are stuffed with. I wonder if there's much to approve of in a marrow apart from its size. Would anyone eat a courgette if it had the texture of marrow? I doubt it. I'm glad my neglected tomatoes haven't followed the example of your courgettes and grown to be the size of pumpkins!
Hi,
Abandoned is the best way to go... Tough love is what my plants get. And yet they're still going, still producing tomatoes and tasty they are too.
I also have Strawberries blooming, one pot only started recently, the other has been doing so for months now. All are from the same pack, so should be no variation... Not sure why one has only just started to produce fruit for me.
The very definition of "benign neglect"? 'Incas' sounds wonderful - is it a tidy bush, or a sprawling one like my horrible 'tumbler'? I'm sure I could grow a couple of tomatoes without putting prospective buyers off next year...
Hi Liz and Janet - sorry to have taken so long to reply.
Liz - tomatoes are still ripening - even though I am hardly watering them. I wouldn't recommend this treatment. Given how well they are doing with minimal attention, just think what a wonderful crop I would have had if I had looked after them properly!
Janet / Plantelicious - the Inca bush is very compact, it's meant to be a metre high (mine is less!) and there isn't a sprawl in it. It's unlike any other tomato plant I've grown before.
Everyone - you might like to know I've just posted the first of a short sequence of Lake District posts.
http://esthersgardennotes.blogspot.com/2011/10/tension-in-landscape-part-one.html
Esther
It's grand coming home from a vacation/holiday to find fresh tomatoes ripe for the picking! Our tomatoes, and all the veggies, have been neglected save for harvesting, for the last few weeks, although we haven't gone away. Towards the end of the season I lose interest in tending the vegetables. Nothing's been watered or weeded, but the tomatoes keep coming, the peppers keep ripening, and there's still lettuce and greens, herbs and cucumbers, and enough cherry and slicing tomatoes to share with neighbors, grandchildren, the Lawn Man's co-workers, and my clients, with still more to freeze and more to eat fresh. Maybe next year I'll stick to my resolution to grow fewer tomato plants. A family of two simply doesn't need a dozen tomato plants! On the other hand, it's fun sharing them too. :)
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