As you may be aware, Paula is, and always has been, an addicted gardener. When we were in Peru, her escape from the rigors of the assignment was her little garden at the mission home.
In the rare moments when she had free time, you'd find her with dirt under her fingernails, wrestling some plant in to submission.
Returning to Raleigh, she dug in and brought obedience to her gardens once again.
As part of the renewal, she spruced up her vegetable/flower garden,
and brought in all sorts of great compost and other secret ingredients.
Everything planted therein has grown well.
In the past, her tomatoes have been successful. However, a couple of years ago, the neighborhood squirrels (aka 'tree rats') discovered that they liked them, and last year, she harvested precisely two intact tomatoes for all her work. So, this year she decided that she'd plant a cherry tomato plant, reasoning that a) there would be so many she and the squirrels could share, and b) squirrels can't climb tomato plants, right? So she bought one nice little plant.
There must be something in what she has put in the garden, because soon:
OK, OK, apologies to PhotoShop, but it did get really big.
And both of her assumptions were incorrect. She has only found 11 ripe cherry tomatoes, and the tree rats have scored the rest.
So next year, the tomatoes will come from the farmers' market or the grocery store, and Paula will find something else that grows well, though maybe not taller than she is.
We hope that your tree rats continue to like only acorns.
Dave & Paula
1 comment:
Paula, your gardening skills are amazing! Sorry about the tree rats. Mine love the roots of flowering plants, so it's a continuing disappointment to suddenly find the begonias uprooted and rootless. Grrrrr!
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