My Plants Won’t Stop Growing!

I think I bit off a little more than I can chew.  But the plus side is that the constant clippings I’m having to do are filling up vases nicely.

This will be the extent of pretty decorating pictures in this post. The numbered vase is from Trohv in the Takoma neighborhood of DC,  the crate is from Anthropologie, and the mirror is vintage in the sense that it’s actually vintage AND in the sense that I’ve had it so long I don’t recall where I got it.

I probably have 150 little tomatoes growing and dozens of peppers.  Everything is really thriving except the cilantro, which had an unfortunate incident with over-watering and has been replanted; I got two good batches of guacamole out of it and my husband made me a “special” greek salad, which he lovingly and misguidedly infused with copious amounts of cilantro leaves. Being the horticulturalist he is, he told me this week that I have so many tomatoes I should be watering the plants twice a day — twice a day! This is exciting to me. I’ve started using empty milk jugs to water them, because my little watering can requires about 20 trips back to the sink and the ugly plastic jugs only require two. Keep in mind that this is all happening on a balcony: four gallons of water a day, for BALCONY PLANTS. Needless to say I can’t walk out there, and I just contort myself into various positions when I’m tending to my garden.

The cages we used are proving to be too small for my plants, which are taller than I am now, and I’ve resorted to using twine to tie them to stakes, railings, and anything else nearby and stationary.  I may have used some dinner forks as stakes.  It’s working so far, and I spend about 20 minutes every day in my tiny garden alternating between counting tomato flowers, tying new supports for the growing limbs, and yelling at my son to “DON’T TOUCH MOMMY’S PLANTS, I’M SERIOUS!” Don’t worry, I’m not keeping him from nature: I give him cuttings all the time to play with and inspect, and a few times a week I let him water them with his tiny watering can (though I prefer to take him outside to water the flowers downstairs).  He’s even eaten two whole green peppers. I spent so much focused time outside one morning last week that my son locked me out for about a minute, and once I realized I couldn’t get back in I pounded my fists on the glass like a crazy lady until he undid the latch. This is the jungle where I was being held captive:

Hopefully I’ll have some images of beautiful purple and yellow tomatoes to show you in a few weeks. Until then, think of me and my hulking plants, and hope for lots of rain (water!) but not too much wind (because it would knock down my makeshift fork-stakes).

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