Tomato Haiku

Cage tomatoes young
A new gardener must learn
Or else they grow wild

As if I haven't tortured you enough with my writing, I decided to come up with a haiku about my most recent gardening endeavor. 

It became apparent recently that the cage I originally made for my tomatoes was inadequate. When I first built it I had hoped that the tomatoes would cling to it. I imagined them holding on, like a vine to a chain-link fence. Instead, they ignored the fence almost completely and have grown wild. 

 

  








To remedy the situation I went out (finally) and purchased five tomato cages. As further evidence of my inexperience, I was almost unable to find cages at my local hardware store. It is, in fact, so late in the season that almost all of the cages have been bought up. I was lucky enough, however, to find some.

The biggest snag I ran into was that my tomatoes weren't spaced out enough. Because of this, I had to uproot a few of my plants (three to be exact). While I tried to pull up as much of the root structure as I could, in the end I had to leave a lot behind. This has left these tomatoes with an inadequate ablity to pull their nutrients from the soil causing many of the leaves to wilt and die. 

There is, however, some good news beyond a lesson learned. Those plants that were uprooted seem to be surviving. It's been just a few days since I had to move them and they are already starting to show signs of growth and continued life. Some leaves that were wilted and beginning to die have perked back up and are bright and green again.


I leave you now with a few pictures of my tomatoes. Soon, I feel, I will be able to harvest yet another hard-earned vegetable from my garden. 

 I see you growing
Day by day my young seedling
What will summer bring?