“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” — Janet Kilburn Phillips
Every few years, I get some plants and muck about with dirt and seeds. Gardening is not my strong suit; I should probably be placed on a “No Plant” list and declared a danger to the average backyard. The problem is that I am always looking for shortcuts. Playing the long game isn’t something I excel at, and with gardening, it’s all a long game, and patience is required. Still, hope, like a lilac bush in May, springs eternal.
A few months ago, while browsing in the dollar store (I’m fancy like that), I came across this sponge-like gadget for growing tomatoes. It had a coating of seeds, and you place it in a container of dirt, water it a few times, and big, juicy ‘maters burst forth in no time. It seemed like the perfect solution for me, so I grabbed one, along with a pot that looked big enough, and a bag of dirt. I was taking no chances on digging up dirt from the ground; I needed the good dirt that came with vitamins and maybe some magic beans.
After carefully breaking up the clods—that’s what gardeners call clumps of dirt—I placed the seeded sponge into the pot and covered it up. The instructions on the box said to water it “regularly,” but I was unsure if that meant every day or that I shouldn’t fool around with the Super Soaker squirt gun I still keep in the garage.
It turns out that location matters with plants as well as real estate. It had to be in “partial sun” which meant I spent thirty minutes on my patio mumbling, “Well, the beach is that way, so that’s east, which is where the sun comes up, but the roof of the garage is lower than the rest of the house, and that tree over there, the leaves come off, but not till November, and thirty days has September…” before finally sticking it in a corner that seemed to get some sun and some shade, except when it rained, but that’s good for plants, right?
Just for kicks, I thought I should name this experiment in vegetation. Calling it “Tom” seemed way too basic, but I didn’t want to pick a ridiculous name like “Tommileigh Cherrylyn Compostican” or something. It started out as a sponge, so I settled on calling it “Bob.” Bob, the cherry tomato plant was going to bloom where he was planted, providing us with ripe, delicious snacks.
Several friends have been advising me about planting veggies; one told me to get a “tomato cage” for the container. This was about two weeks after I planted Bob. A cage? As far as I know, Bob hadn’t committed a crime. There wasn’t so much as a sprig or a leaf popping up out of the dirt, so clearly he wasn’t a flight risk. Since I am not an expert on plants, I followed their advice, got a cage, and stuck it in the soil, around the edges, hoping I wasn’t piercing Bob in the process.
Then I waited. I watered Bob regularly, hoping to be like Goldilocks, with just the right amount. I kept an eye on how much sun he was getting, wondering if it was too much or too little. One morning, I even chased away a bunny who got a little too close to my Bob. This is what I had become, some kind of tomato nanny.
A month after submerging Bob in a pot of gourmet dirt and dousing him with pristine bottled spring water daily, monitoring his sun exposure, and wondering if plants can get melanomas, there were still no results. When I started, I was sure that by now, I’d be swimming in tomatoes, handing them out to neighbors, and bragging about them on social media.
Another month has passed, and Bob has yet to provide a single leaf, much less anything edible. I think it’s time to call an end to the “experiment” and accept that I’m doomed to dull, tasteless supermarket tomatoes. I did get a replacement plant from a friend that had already reached a foot tall and had some buds on it, so perhaps there is still time for me to harvest something other than a moldy sponge of disappointment and failure.
Alas, poor Bob, we hardly knew ye.
Brenda Kelley Kim has lived in Marblehead for 50 years and is an author, freelance writer, and mother of three. Her column appears weekly.
