My Tomatoes Hate Me
My not-so-great year of gardening
I have moved somewhat away from content about my own peparedness journey, so it feels a little strange sometimes to write about garden updates given all <gestures wildly> that is happening at the moment. Yet I actually want to come back to this content a bit more because, it’s kind of calming actually. And, based on the engagement in my May post about my late-season frantic planting, y’all are into it. So expect some more of this interspersed with the other climate, prepping, and political posts.
Almost every time my mom and sister were over at my house this summer, they’d say to me, “you need to water your tomatoes!”
And I’d guiltily respond, “I know, I know, I’m terrible.” And then I’d feel so much guilt for leaving my poor, droopy plants without water for several days. I’d make myself feel better by reminding myself of something I had read at some point: that tomatoes don’t need to be watered every day.
Then I’d catch a glimpse of the shriveling leaves and feel the guilt of gardening negligence anew.
But it’s been dry. We had but one sprinkle over the summer that barely soaked into the soil. I, in turn, did not make up for it by watering my plants on the regular.
I honestly don’t know what it was, but it felt like pulling my own teeth when telling myself I needed to water. I would only remember when I’d see my poor plants or when I wanted to harvest some tomatoes. I became resentful of not having any kind of irrigation system.
Every time I went over to a friend’s house whose garden was thriving (usually because of irrigation), I’d feel guilt and also annoyance of not having a means of watering them that didn’t require thought/action by me.
Gardening content has been a big part of this newsletter as I’ve used it as a way to keep myself accountable to it. And in 2023, I declared myself an official gardener. This year, however, was one of those off-the-wagon years. Almost everything in my garden died early on (except for an intrepid squash plant that I have ignored almost completely yet still produces fruit—read: my kind of plant), but I felt confident about the tomatoes. I felt like I could keep up with them.
At the beginning of the summer, they’d begin to droop and I’d water them and I was in awe of how they’d come back to life after a good soak. But then it just kept happening and the plants kept looking like this more often than not:
Yet, despite all my neglect, the tomatoes have not died. They are alive. I’ve probably caused the larger tomatoes (I don’t know what kind they actually are, lol), to produce sparsely, but the cherry tomatoes are thriving. All summer long they’ve produced sweet, juicy tomatoes that I’ve just been eating off the vine.
Once, when my husband commented on the shriveling, I told him (not very confidently) that I read somewhere that tomatoes that experience water stress are actually sweeter. Cory seemed impressed by this fact. When I looked it up, though, I discovered that, indeed, it is true that water stress can make tomatoes sweet. However it takes knowledge to do it right. I’ll confirm that I do not have said knowledge. And I suppose that’s how half of the cherry tomatoes are split before I can get to them.
I’ll say this, though, this certainly isn’t the end of my gardening journey. It’s a blip. My sister—the one right next door!—is an incredibly knowledgeable gardener (I think she might also be a master gardener) and has agreed to help me next year and we’ll be combining some water-irrigation system next year. So I’m committed. It was an off year and I have accepted it. More so now that we have a week of rain ahead of us that allows me a break from watering.
With that, I’ll leave you with this bowl of super delicious sweet tomatoes that came from the tomato-plants-that-hate-me-but-didn’t-die.
P.S. This whole gardening post reminded me of something that Jonathan Groff said in his interview with NPR’s Rachel Martin for her Wild Card podcast. She asked “what makes you irrationally defensive?” And he answered (in his classic charming way) that he gets irrationally defensive when he gets a critique about something he’s just starting to learn. And I could not identify with this more. That is exactly how I feel about gardening. Anyone else here relate?
the deer found my garden this summer ! waaaaaah! i guess we were just lucky the past few years... anyway so that SUCKED and i really couldn't get anything past sprout stage. but all the berries and fruits at our community garden thrived !
I had an off year in my garden too. It happens! My celery--which is usually a pretty heavy water hog, is still doing fine, despite my neglect. I have it in the soil, in a spot that is shady in the morning and early afternoon, and in a keyhole garden. I, in a previous year (when I had energy!), dug down about 4 feet and built something of a flat hugel bed. I buried all sorts of organic matter and put a compost pile in the center of the keyhole. Makes for less effort later!