first tomatoes and artichokes

first-cherokee-purple-tomatoes-of-the-season

greenhouse-tomato-plant

It’s hardly May, and I have my first toma­toes of the sea­son already, this gor­geous pair on a seedling of the heir­loom Chero­kee Purple.

Okay, I cheated a lit­tle. These are actu­ally hot­house toma­toes. Some seed I planted in the green­house last spring didn’t ger­mi­nate until last fall. Trans­plant­ing the plants out­doors in Novem­ber would have meant cer­tain death for the lit­tle toma­toes, but I didn’t have the heart to pull them out. One of them set down roots through the drainage holes of the pot and just kept grow­ing. Although the green­house is too shady and unheated, the plant sur­vived. And now I have these first two toma­toes, with more on the way.

I’ve never used the green­house for any­thing as prac­ti­cal as grow­ing veg­gies, so this will be an inter­est­ing experiment.

first-artichokes

The first arti­chokes of the sea­son are also on some plants that were almost acci­dents. For years we had a clump of an espe­cially good selec­tion grow­ing in the veg­gie gar­den. But a room addi­tion on the house put the gar­den in shade, and the plants went into decline. I dug them out and was going to toss them, until I decided to try a cou­ple stems in the back of a new raised bed. The com­bi­na­tion of more light, more mois­ture, and fresh compost-rich soil worked their magic, and the plants are now look­ing as good as they ever have.

I like to think that I earned some bonus points for show­ing some mercy and not toss­ing the tomato and arti­choke plants into the greens recy­cling. But in the case of the arti­choke, at least, it’s another life les­son in try­ing to find the right loca­tion for an under­per­form­ing plant.

Are there any plants that you’ve had sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences with? Any “res­cue plants” that ended up reward­ing you as much as oth­ers you’d planned for?

May 12 2009 | Categories: art • gardening • my garden • places | Tags: • • | 2 Comments »