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It's about as big as a tennis ball. Not that grand for a Beefsteak tomato. But, it's the first tomato I've grown to maturity on my own for thirty years or better. I've tried, but I just can't catch a break for growing green things.
In the past I was told that the tomatoes I planted got end-rot disease because I smoked cigarettes, and by handling tobacco I got the Mosaic disease on my tomato plants that caused the end-rot. The reason I decided to try again this year is that I stopped smoking tobacco three years ago. Sure enough, I got my first vine-ripened tomato in a long time.
It's just my first tomato out of this potted plant. That's probably why it didn't get as big as an in-the-ground tomato plant that has all the dirt it needs to go where no tomato plant has gone before. I want a tomato big enough that I can make a sandwich out of one 3/4" slice, two pieces of white bread, and slathered with Duke's Mayonnaise, salt and black pepper.
Moreover, I have maybe a dozen more smaller tomatoes on that same potted plant that haven't matured yet. I got a feeling they might not get even as big as this first one before they ripen, but they're better than the luck I've had with growing tomatoes for decades. Yippee!
The other two tomato plants I have growing are an experiment with growing tomatoes upside down. I bought two five-gallon plastic buckets at Wal-mart's paint department and cut a two-inch hole in the middle of the bottom of them. Then, I tucked the tomato plants I bought down through those holes.
Once I centered the plants in the holes I cut I tucked coffee filters loosely around the stems to hold the roots inside the bucket, yet give them wiggle room around the stems as needed to expand as they grew bigger. Then, with the coffee filters in place, I gently filled them half-way up with ordinary dirt that had a little bit of compost mixed in. Yesterday, I finished filling them up with some expensive potting soil.
Granted, the plants I put in these plastic buckets to see if tomato plants actually can grow upside down were smaller to begin with than the one right-side up plant that has produced one ripe tomato. I didn't think they were growing for a long time, but when they started adding leaves they really took off, and are doing at least as well as the regular one. I even have a couple of small tomatoes on them.
My fig tree is loaded for bear. There wasn't even a threat of a late frost this year, and since I fertilized it last fall and once during the spring the tree/bush has really blossomed and it's full of young figs. I might get a bushel or more of fresh figs to eat this summer.
Just about every other green thing I have planted in the last five years has died. Almost as if they were nipped in the bud. They never stood a chance of staying alive if they were put in the ground by my hand. I sort of know what the problem is. I don't do much after I put plants in the ground. They're plants. They're in the ground. They're supposed to grow. It must be a personal vendetta of the plant world against me.
Why am I always the last to know?
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
