the eye of Nova's mind

My tomato plant tipped over.

Two branches came off, as well as twenty unripened fruit & seven semi- to fully ripened ones. That's almost half of all of what had developed on the plant.

I mentioned before that one of my friends from work gave me a tomato plant. I had not planned on growing "real" vegetables (I say that even though tomatoes are actually fruits) but it was a gift. So I planted it in too small a container (only a 10", 3-qt. size) & set about treating it like my other plants.

So far it has done pretty well. It's more than twice its original height & has bushed out (I'm pretty sure that's not a real phrase) considerably. Two weeks ago, I noticed it had brought forth some little yellow blooms. Last week, I saw that one had shriveled; I implored the plant to not be dying. To my delight, I saw very soon the first tiny green tomato emerge from that withered bloom. Now there are three of these fruit, with several more blooms about to emerge.

The herbs seem to be doing fairly well. I noticed that my chives & thyme are both getting light green and/or drying up somewhat. I water every day but only feed once a week, so I'm wondering if I should beef up that schedule. Meanwhile, the oregano seems to have contracted some sort of spotting disease. Nearly all of the leaves are spotted & turning yellow. I think it's a disease because the mint plant also showed signs of this & they were adjacent to each other. The oregano has again shown signs that it's going into flower; this time I will not attempt to halt this process.

I bought a stevia plant two weeks ago. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.

The basil is gangbusters. I find myself having to pinch back growth not because I want any leaves but to halt "legginess". I still have four stalks that are way too tall.

The sage, sadly, might be in its last throes. I took too long in transplanting it, which resulted in stunted growth. It might make a recovery but the leaves now are almost all silver when previously they were vigorously green.

After a very long work week (overtime--nearly unheard of at my company), I finally was able to snag some planters at Meijer. Nothing fancy but affordable. I got only four, plus some other supplies (trowel, potting soil).

When I got home, I collected some stones & pebbles. Then I went to work, transplanting the rosemary, thyme, basil & oregano into fresh, rocky soil.

I have two more planters (which were here already) but I ran out of soil. I'll get more this week, along with some perlite or vermiculite, after the project at work is over.

Everything moves apace.

(The cilantro did die. I picked up a packet of seeds, though, in case I want another go-round.)

I went back to the gardening store & picked up two more seedlings, basil & chives. I was very pleased to see the latter, as I love the flavor of chives/green onions.

So that's a full windowsill now. The unfortunate thing is that, while I have a southfacing window, there's this huge overhang above it, so the plants don't get nearly as much sunshine as they need. I don't want to set them outside yet, as nightfall is still pretty chilly. At the same time, I'm fighting the urge to go out & buy a fluorescent light structure so as to string it up somewhere here in my bedroom. These herbs were meant as a convenient addition to my cooking attempts, not as a project unto themselves.

But they're totally becoming a project. I'm delving into gardening articles & online communities just as much as I did with cooking when I started getting into that activity. I don't have a yard, merely a concrete patio. I lost my previous gardening supplies after my sister's basement flooded & mold crept into all of my belongings stored there. I'm starting from scratch and, after pricing the next largest planters at the gardening store, I really don't have the budget to get too serious about this. So I need to--pardon the expression--nip this in the bud right away. (I do want to transplant these seedlings at some point, though, as their growth will get stunted for sure in such tiny flowerpots.)