I do know there’s no such factor as a free lunch.
And I’ve heard there aren’t any things like free puppies or kittens. However at a time when worries about shortage appear epidemic, I’m going to share a narrative about abundance, courtesy of a tomato plant named Tom.
Tom got here to me this summer time, due to my favourite nursery. I used to be loaded up with hanging baskets and extra annuals than I had meant to purchase when the cashier pointed to a cart by the checkout. It was filled with pots with inexperienced vines slumping to the ground.
“Be happy to take a tomato plant,” she provided. “No cost. We’re clearing them out.”
I’ve by no means tried my hand at elevating greens – solely flowers. However who doesn’t love a discount?
I grabbed a plant, named him “Tom” as a result of that was the one remaining a part of his damaged plastic marker and headed to the automotive. He regarded fairly thirsty, simply this aspect of dying. The value being what it was – or wasn’t – neither of us had a lot to lose.
Balancing Act:Art of personal griping revived
The primary days had been iffy. I dug a gap by the again fence, plopped him in and tied him to the boards with string. In any other case, he would have handed out throughout the again mattress. For just a few days, I watered him to no avail. His leaves nonetheless slumped. Then a number of days in, I observed {that a} single watering would perk him up for about 12 hours earlier than he bowed his head and went blah.
My gardening persistence typically just isn’t spectacular, however for some cause, I stored this up for every week or so till voilà, the garden sprinkler gave the impression to be sufficient and Tom began flexing his muscle tissue – really climbing up the fence, sneaking by means of it to my neighbor’s aspect of the fence, and crawling out with the keenness of a kudzu vine to embrace the little Buddha statue that sits on the sting of the mattress.
As with most issues – thunderstorms, snowstorms, squirrels – Buddha didn’t flinch. He paid no consideration to the truth that Tom now was producing a formidable assortment of tiny yellow flowers.
By now, the neighbor, extra vigilant than Buddha, had both observed the flowers or had hassle mowing his garden and erected a formidable steel trellis on his aspect of the fence to by some means tame Tom. Inspired by the flowers, I utilized a bit fertilizer, in hopes of pushing out tomatoes.
Apparently, it labored as a result of inside a few weeks, I had a single tomato vine on my aspect overlaying each Buddha and 30 sq. toes, together with not less than three dozen inexperienced tomatoes, just a few about to show orange. At that time, it turned a contest between me and a few critter – I believe a rabbit – to see who might get to the ripe ones first.
After I observed we had been working two for 2 (and my two had been scrumptious), I began choosing the inexperienced ones and following all of the gratuitous recommendation I had acquired about learn how to ripen them off the vine.
Knowledgeable now that tomatoes produce one thing known as ethylene, which makes them ripen, and that I might expedite the method by stashing inexperienced ones in brown paper luggage, I headed to the shop to top off on paper luggage, which quickly had been littering my again porch tables.
Dinner visitors, noticing the baggage, provided extra recommendation.
“Put a banana in every bag,” mentioned one. “It’s going to go sooner.” So I used to be off to the shop for bananas. However the course of was gradual, and Tom stored producing inexperienced tomatoes.
The logical subsequent step was to work with what I had, which meant returning to the shop for cornmeal to seek out out if the “straightforward” air fryer recipe for fried inexperienced tomatoes was really straightforward, wherein case I in all probability had sufficient tomato provides to open a small restaurant.
It was, and with a bit Remoulade sauce on the aspect, they had been scrumptious. Good factor as a result of frost was coming and the plot Tom had taken over was the one place I might plant my new weeping cherry tree.
By the point three guys from the nursery had arrived with shovels and the tree, I did the unthinkable – thanked Tom after which chopped him into 2-foot chunks, deposited his stalks into two rubbish luggage and plunked his inexperienced tomatoes – 65 of them – right into a pair of buckets.
I hear that saved correctly (no ethylene), inexperienced tomatoes might final nearly a 12 months. Or if I don’t thoughts a “rustic really feel,” I might grasp them from my kitchen ceiling to ripen them. However as a result of Tom had come to me without cost, it appeared solely proper to pay it ahead.
Buddies with air fryers have been consuming plenty of fried inexperienced tomatoes, and Buddha, sitting below the cherry tree, lastly can see the sunshine of day.
Balancing Act creator Pat Snyder is a Beechwold resident and life-balance speaker and coach. Learn her work at patsnyderonline.com