The Simple Life at Home: I am a failure.

11:26 PM | Posted by Lori ~ The Simple Life at Home | | Edit Post

Well, specifically in one area for the purposes of this post.

Back over the summer I had grand plans. I was going to be the next big thing. I would reduce my grocery bills and increase our health. I was going to grow my own vegetables.

I did tons of research. Every book in the library on vegetable growing here in the South Florida region came home with me. I wrote out pages and pages of notes - planting times, feeding schedules, pruning information...anything I could find.

And I bought. Oh, did I buy! Once Hubby rejected my plan to make a raised bed garden in the yard and insisted I work with pots on the patio, I had myself a pot purchasing party. Big ones, little ones, round ones, square ones. And or course, I needed to buy the appropriate soil stuff - peat moss, lime, perlite, sand, blood meal, moon dust. Ok, no moon dust actually, but just about everything else that comes in bags from Home Depot. I figured it would all be worth it in the end once we reaped the bountiful harvest.

Then I hit a snag. Except for a peppers and tomatoes, almost everything I wanted to grow was to be grown from seed. But apparently there is a seed shortage here in South Florida. I couldn't find seeds anywhere. Well, flower seeds, yes, but that wasn't what I needed. I could order them online, but Hubby hates it when I shop online and I'd already pushed his patience to the limit with all the pots and bags now filling our garage.

So I decided to be content with peppers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and herbs.

To date, I have harvested one (did ya catch that? ONE!) cherry tomato. My peppers are growing - I'd say that there are about 3 on the vine that will be ready to harvest soon. But my tomatoes? I don't know what happened. They have been plagued by everything they could be plagued by and are just spindly and dying. I have no idea what happened. None of my books or notes address the problem.

Hubby has kindly begun returning the pots. I say kindly because he has not completely ridiculed me as I had expected him to.

As for that one lone little cherry tomato?

It was the best darn $100 bite of tomato I've ever had.

5 comments:

Ice Cream said...: You need to do what I do. Just toss a few seeds in some dirt and water whenever you remember. I have had WAY more success doing it this way than I ever did when spending money and reading books. This is the first time I didn't care about my garden and it is the first year that I got red tomatoes (red on the vine, not on my window sill) and I got lots of them to boot. We even got some corn AND basil.; October 18, 2007 at 4:41 AM
Ms. Kathleen said...: Wow, I would think veggies would grow like weeds there! Wow! Now we have such a short growing season here and I have yet to figure out container gardening - I live on a rock - not much soil but at least I had three tomatoes! lol!; October 18, 2007 at 5:39 PM
Anonymous said...: it will get better! at least you tried!!; October 19, 2007 at 2:41 AM
tammi said...: Yeah, I would have thought stuff would just automatically do well in your climate!! I always resent our short growing season because it's almost not long enough to successfully grow peppers and tomatoes, unless they're started indoors quite early, usually only have a few weeks before the frost comes. Either way, I've been trying tomatoes for the last 6 summers up here and never been at all successful either. I've tasted plenty "over-priced" tomatoes in the last few years!!; October 19, 2007 at 3:45 AM
Mylinda said...: Ok, so don't feel so bad. Around here I'm known as the Black Thumb. Most everyone in my family, esp. my MIL can grow just about anything. But me? Oh, no. The one who would love to grow stuff just has to look at it and it dies. The only thing I've had success with is the lily bulbs and that's only because I can't get to them...they're in the ground!!! lol It's ok....you're not alone.
:-); October 20, 2007 at 12:02 AM