Container Gardening: Chapter Four
CROSS YOUR FINGERS
So despite the fact that I starved the tomato, then overwatered it, and despite the fact that once I figured out an appropriate nutritional regimen, the plant grew so fast the stem cracked, it has yet to die. And...
The tomato plant is flowering!
Cross your fingers that it actually makes fruit now. I don't know what the process looks like at all, and some of the flowers are kind of dying. Hopefully, fruit will start to form now.
The basil is looking great! It looks dirty because it's covered in black pepper to keep bugs off. But I put some of it in some marinara a couple of weeks ago, and it is delicious.
And now, for a personal triumph of mine. There was a baby green lynx spider living in the plant at one point. I didn't kill it because a) it lives outside, not in my house where it can get me in my sleep, and b) it eats bugs.
I haven't seen it in a few days, and I think it probably moved on somewhere with more food (since I sprayed pesticide on the plant), or where it could move from plant to plant. Or it ate a poisoned bug and died, which I hope is not the case. Or it got eaten by something else, which I also hope is not the case. Or it is molting into a Shelob, and I will have to kill it if it is too big for me to deal with!
Now there is a teeny-tiny orb weaver in the plant, which I'll get a picture of if it ever gets big enough for the camera to focus on.
So despite the fact that I starved the tomato, then overwatered it, and despite the fact that once I figured out an appropriate nutritional regimen, the plant grew so fast the stem cracked, it has yet to die. And...
The tomato plant is flowering!
Cross your fingers that it actually makes fruit now. I don't know what the process looks like at all, and some of the flowers are kind of dying. Hopefully, fruit will start to form now.
The basil is looking great! It looks dirty because it's covered in black pepper to keep bugs off. But I put some of it in some marinara a couple of weeks ago, and it is delicious.
And now, for a personal triumph of mine. There was a baby green lynx spider living in the plant at one point. I didn't kill it because a) it lives outside, not in my house where it can get me in my sleep, and b) it eats bugs.
I haven't seen it in a few days, and I think it probably moved on somewhere with more food (since I sprayed pesticide on the plant), or where it could move from plant to plant. Or it ate a poisoned bug and died, which I hope is not the case. Or it got eaten by something else, which I also hope is not the case. Or it is molting into a Shelob, and I will have to kill it if it is too big for me to deal with!
Now there is a teeny-tiny orb weaver in the plant, which I'll get a picture of if it ever gets big enough for the camera to focus on.