I spent the afternoon taking down my heirloom tomato garden, which is in containers on our front yard. The garden is in containers because it would have been very expensive to landscape an in-ground garden and the soil isn’t good because when this house was built, it was the practice to scrape off the topsoil, so what we have left is yellowish and rocky. The containers go in the front yard because tomatoes need at least six-to-eight hours of direct sun every day and only the front yard gets that much sun. Plus, there are no HOA rules or zoning regulations to stop me.
I had almost 40 varieties of heirloom tomatoes this year with 80-ish plants, plus patty pans squashes, which my father loves, basil, lime basil, lemon basil, oregano and coriander. I grow my plants from seed, so I’ll have about six-or-eight weeks off until is is time, in early January, to start making my list of tomatoes for my 2010 garden. I will include lots of cherry tomatoes in a rainbow of colors for my father. I plant them by the side of the walkway and driveway so he can sample as many as he wants when he goes out to get the mail or the newspaper.
By taking down the tomato cages and pulling the plants, I am reducing the time it will take this weekend when my tomato-friendly neighbors will help me cart the containers to their winter home in the back yard, where the squirrels and deer won’t mind them. Plus, the weather today was irresistible — it was a glorious October day, everything sparkled, the sky was clear and blue and it was so warm I didn’t need a jacket and cool enough that I didn’t need a sweatband — if you need numbers, that’s around 72 F.
The weather is predicted to be glorious again tomorrow, so I will finish taking down the tomato plants and maybe pull up the zinnias and plant some pansies in their place. I should pull the marigolds, too, I gather, but their yellow blossoms are so cheerful and abundant I can’t bring myself to do it.
What this means for the blog is a few days of personal blogging about the garden, cooking and baking, the kitties, songs I like — unless something comes up that absolutely MUST be parodied, mocked or lampooned. Let me know what you think of the change of pace.
Yanno, Cyn, the beauty of a blog is that the reader can read the whole of one entry and just scan another, depending on the reader’s interests. Although some blogs get read simply because of the writer’s skills, even when the subject is not one that the reader finds captivating.
.-= Peter´s last blog ..Why This Fight? =-.
You could parody or lampoon kittens. I don’t think that’s ever been done before….
.-= richard mcenroe´s last blog ..Demon Beast Recession! =-.
Cynthia,
I wish your father continued good health, and hope his wrist has healed well.
As an afterthought, I wondered if you had ever heard of the “The Princeton Eggs”, a scientific experiment based around the Global Consciousness Project? “The basic principle behind the study is to find out whether major world events that capture the attention of huge numbers of the population can be sensed as a global consciousness by these instruments.” Just what does this have to do with tomatoes……uh……, food for thought?
Ad rem,
Thank you for the good wishes for my father — yes, his wrist is better and I think it is time to get him back to the pool to start swimming again.
I am vaguely aware of the Global Consciousness Project, but have not heard of “The Princeton Eggs.” I’ll have to look into that.
I am interested in projects like this because I have been practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique since 1974 and the TM-Sidhi program since 1978. The founder of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, asked scientists who practiced the TM technique to research its benefits, with the result that it is far and aware the most researched program for self-improvement/gaining enlightenment ever. They discovered that negative trends in a population dropped significantly when at least one percent of the population practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique anywhere in that population’s geographical region, OR at least the square root of one percent of a population practiced the TM-Sidhi program together in a group. This phenomenon is called the Maharishi Effect. The foremost researcher on the TM program is Dr. David Orme-Johnson — there’s more info at his Web site, the Truth about TM. I have the highest regard for Dr. Orme-Johnson.
Cynthia