A Friend Gave Me 4 Tomato " Babies ".

Tell me, do you ever listen to advice about when to plant?

These 4 tomato plants had been nursed inside her house from a mere seed to a healthy looking green shoot. Oh yes, you could definitely see the distinctive tomato features. She had at least 100 of these tomato shoots and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she had given them names. Or at least talked to them often. Prince Charles isn't the only one, you know. Eh, I've done it too.

The week I got them ( last week ) the sun was belting out its summer tunes with high abandon and no one would have thought that a cold spell was in the wings. Never mind the rain. Advice of keeping these babies under cover and wait with planting them seemed a bit dilly to me. I held out 3 days and then thought,

" If I don't do it now, I'll never do it! "

Fair enough, at least I did a spot of gardening on Saturday afternoon. While I was at it, I planted a few left over packets of seed from last season. Let's hope the seeds still function. Mind you, it might not matter much. On Saturday after I had planted them, I remembered to water them extremely well. Naturally, nature has a great sense of humour. Not even an hour later, the heavens opened up.

Not just a little bit mind you but for the whole night. Coupled with all of the rain we have had this week, it is a fair assumption that the seedlings have either drowned or been swept away. Awful. Imagine if they start to cross pollinate each other. I might get a bean & pumpkin vegetable. The tomatoes might make it, because I planted them in a pot outside the front door.

Why in a pot? Well, this friend told me that tomatoes outside the front door keep the flies at bay. In fact because we do have an abundance of these pesky flies, I wouldn't mind planting a whole row of potted tomatoes outside the front door. Almost like an avenue. Wouldn't that look interesting and newsworthy for our neighbours!

Weeds on the other hand, are a hardy bunch and survive almost anything. Bad weather, snow, ice and floods mean nothing to a weed. It takes it in its weedy stride and gives us an extra bit of work. Who hasn't pulled out weed after weed, time after time? And as I look out my kitchen window, I can see a prolific amount of weeds waiting for me...

Biggi