We read a lot about how to originate our own food . We teach how to start our ejaculate at just the right-hand temperature , give the pure amount of temperateness and water ( not too much , not too little ) , transplanting at the right time , fertilize and weed andmulchand stand off the bad bugs with an arsenal of tool and sprays . If we follow this program , we ’ll be rewarded with nutrient in a few month ’ clock time .
But sometimes , such a programme hold out out the room access when nature plainly takes over . Suddenly we ’re reminded that horticulture is an constituent process that trust on no rhyme or intellect . horticulture is as much a hands - off process as it is hand - on .
So when I bring out the “ accidental tomato plant ” growing in a largely neglected part of my yard a couple months ago , I almost did n’t think it was actually a tomato plant . And not just one , but three flora .
Most of my intellectual nourishment garden is grown on more or less 3,000 square foot on a sloping hillside . Another 2,500 square feet at the bottom of the hill is a almost empty plot , trapping only a gamboge Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , a slowly originate pineapple plant patch , an fresh greenhouse , and wad and slews of weeds . ( Eventually , I ’ll get to those projects … sigh . )
The solar day I key out the varlet tomato plants , I was bringing a lachrymation can down to the pineapples . All that bushy growth on the terrace below the Ananas comosus was looking strangely familiar . I in the first place dismissed the plants as overgrown skunk , but now that they were larger , their leaves were becoming more distinct and their scent was undeniably a tomato .
Somehow , in the midsection of a spurge - infested yard where no food for thought had ever been grown before , next to random stacks of leftover construction textile , three tomato plant were boom in the ground , with the only water rootage coming from our infrequent spring rainfall .
I did n’t even know tomato plants could grow on a 45 ° slope ! In plain old dirt , no less . Not dirt . But worthless , cakey , clayey , pebbly grunge .
The plants were about 2 understructure magniloquent when I first found them , with strong and sizeable stem . I even spotted a few tomatoes growing !
The mystery is attempt to determine which tomatoes these are , and how the seeds travel so far in the first place . My neighbor thought a birdie must have eaten a Lycopersicon esculentum from last summertime ’s garden and pooped out some seeds overhead … I suppose anything is possible ? !
As of last week , the love apple plants were still growing robustly , with more flowers bloom and huge limb bulge out to straggle over into the pineapple plant spot .
I ’ve endeavor to lop the unwieldy savage , and will start to urine and fertilise them regularly . Hopefully , I ’ll end up with a handful of inadvertent tomatoes long before my other tomato plants get fruit !
