#The volunteer tomato

[nosidekickspod]

[petula-xx]

For a few reasons, I wasn't going to grow tomatoes this year.

Then I added some compost to a few beds to help refresh them.

Apparently there were many tomato seeds in that compost.

Now I am growing around 200 tomato plants, but not all will survive.

Let the tomato Hunger Games begin!!!

[spoonyruncible]

I'm not gatekeeping, I just have some gates and I've sort of vaguely known they're there, I haven't kept them and the hinges are so rusty i doubt they'd close if I tried. But, like, for ages all that came through those gates were stray geese and a dog I think belongs to a neighbor but might just belong to himself and of course there's the hunching afflicted wrathbeast. That's just having a garden. Things grow there and random folks stumble in sometimes, mispronounce the names of my favorite varietals, say stunningly inaccurate things about them, and wander bemusedly back out.

As a surprise to probably no one I was a deeply lonely child. No one really got me or what my deal was, so when I found something I loved it was mine and mine alone to treasure. As I got older I found other people who liked 'my' things. Some of those people were horrible! But there was a kinship and it was okay to be a bit horrible so long as we could be odd together. Gardens are resilient things, they tolerate mistakes and abuse. It's absolutely wonderful to share, to dance to the same music, that imperfection becomes part of the joy of it, becomes a unique thing unto itself.

So imagine my shock when there is a garden party that rapidly becomes a festival. No one has ever really been here before, it's been me and the geese and that one dog and a few other weirdos. Suddenly my things, things people beat me for loving, are things everyone loves. All at once the landscape is unrecognizable and if I acknowledge that then I'm being a hipster. I don't mind the festival, it's nice, now it's much easier to get things I need without having to put on my trekking gear and hike out to the one obscure location that has The Supplies. It's not bad, it's just weird. It feels like there is something wrong with me instead of something wrong about liking what I like.

I'm not really talking about one specific thing here, there have been a lot of these moments where what used to be unusual or even shameful is now the big thing. And it's good, it's can be great sometimes even with the unforeseen bizarre bad parts. But there is this selfish little part of me that wants to cling to my unloved love, to put a raggedy LP on a barely working record player and lay on the wooden floor of my childhood home staring at a painting of a ship in a storm that is right beside a picture of a young man in a cap and a too large jacket and listen to sea shanties belted out by people not very good at singing while I drift and drift and drift away on the sound and the whitecaps to a place where there is only this. I love the new versions like a drowning man loves air, I am happy that people have found this beautiful thing and can enjoy it, but there is a tinge to it I don't like. A prick of pain every time I see this joy over my joy, over my joy that I was punished for, humiliated for, shamed for. I'm glad people can love these things without suffering but it makes my suffering seem so fucking stupid.

There is a certain temptation, a bitter agony, that makes me want to hiss like an abused cat and cling jealous to my silly little toys. It's not that I want them all for myself, it's that I can't let go of that little kid with a bruisy eye sulking because no one wants to play with him. It's the whisper of, "We can be friends but only in secret. I don't want people to know I'm like you." It's the enthusiasm that rapidly becomes muted because the whole world is demanding to know why you can't just be normal for once. But that same temptation to lash out is the one that makes me reach out my hand instead, especially to people who are like, "Wow! I've never been to a garden before. I'm gonna screw this up. How do I not screw it up?" because now they're that bruisy eyed kid no one wants to play with. I can't protect the person I used to be by becoming the exact thing that hurt me. Gotta keep the gate open, gotta get used to new things even if it takes noise cancelling headphones and an entirely rational amount of backsliding, gotta wake up every day and keep trying even though the world keeps throwing curveballs that no sane person could anticipate. It's all okay. We're in this together and we're all gonna be okay,

[strewbi]

I love when a manga is just a thinly veiled loving explanation of a the intricacies of a real job.

[farsight-the-char]

Helped prepare tomatoes and bell peppers for freeze drying today.

Went by pretty quick since I have gotten more used to the routine.

Also got to go into the walk in freezer again. I needed that.

[allthingssoulful-garden]

The tomato plants in the garden have been long dead and pulled out, but the volunteers are not done yet.

[hexandbalances]

I found an interesting, faintly thorny plant with delicately pale purple flower growing around my compost. After a little searching I identified it as Solanum carolinense, commonly called "Carolina Horsenettle", but also affectionately referred to as "the Apple of Sodom" or "the Devil's Tomato". I am still a fairly miserable gardener, but I have been blessed with the favor of nightshades.

[undeadhousewife]

This is why grandpa likes me. Yes he's 90 and has alzheimer's. But I don't baby him. My mother in law said there's bananas here, and to slice one up in his cereal. If you ask him he'll say no, but if they're just put into the bowl he'll eat it.

What the fuck. I give the guy choices. Hey good morning sunshine it's time for breakfast. Here's your favorite cereal but you need more than that. I can add a banana to it, or a side of yogurt with fresh blueberries or a glass of V8. After you're done with coffee you need to hydrate so do you want sparkling water or flat?

[manchasama]

I got a lot done! Managed to get one box completely weeded. The fava beans were still alive under all the weeds, so i picked some of the bigger ones (and the ones that broke off during weeding) to give to my stepmom, since she's the reason I planted them :>

[bittertomato]

OTP this, OTP that. My OTP for Mikoto isn't KamiKoto or MikoKuro or MikoMisa or MikoHaru or MikoTen-- can you tell I don't know the ship names for the last two?

It's Mikoto x Communication

[basaltbutch]

i love how i have no gotdamn clue what's growing in my garden anymore

[inthecityofgoodabode]

May 2023: The First Week

Monday’s strawberry harvest complete with squirrel gnaws & slug bites: 

The western border of Lichterman Nature Center: 

The second round of free volunteer tomatoes: 

We planted volunteer tomato seedlings in these hay bales to see if they had been treated with Grazon before applying the hay to our garden or using it for compost. It is still early so we’ll see how things go:

Treated the strawberries with diatomaceous earth to fend off the slugs: 

This is the first year the grape has tried to make flowers: 

The dog & the goddess: 

Our fairy lights from last year died so we had to run new ones: 

Cozy place by the fire: 

[jensownzoo]

Ah!

Apparently the transplanted volunteer passionflower vine has been blooming for the past few days and I missed it thanks to the excessive heat warning. Plus the fact that it's facing away from the house.

There are even two fruits setting on the spent blooms.

Plus there's this blossom that'll be open in the morning and several more buds formed (one shown here).

I've got a few more transplanted vines in a different area that aren't doing as well (the opossums keep trampling it) plus one of the vines in the original volunteer location regrew from a broken-off taproot that's doing great. So I have the potential for some staggered blooming too.

No idea if these are perennial here or if they just reseed themselves. The site where I think the volunteers came from had a lot fewer come up this year, but we had a weird weather year last year. So I guess we'll see.

[chaosagent23]

We're on our garden bullshit again. Professor X better come get these mutant ass tomatoes.

[intertexts]

i should relistwn to that episode....

[elainemorisi]

if I, who don't eat and have never planted, zucchini, turn out to have a volunteer zucchini taking over my raised bed I'm gonna be really amused