Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Memoirs of a Dying Tomato Plant

After a ridiculous amount of rain last week, I noticed that all of my plant pots on the patio were flooded. I figured this might be the case for a day or so as the water subsided but a few days later the pots were still flooded. This is a problem, because you see, we professional gardeners who have never grown anything before know it kills the plants if the water doesn't drain. Upon investigation, I found out that the pots don't have holes in the bottom as every good pot should. I furiously started stabbing the bottom of each pot to make a hole as if every second counted. Parsley flops out, roots and all. The first casualty. I keep stabbing....mud and soil all over me. Just save the tomatoes. It was all for naught, as evidenced by a picture of the writer:



Dear Sean:

Cough....cough. How could you not have looked at the bottom of the pot before planting me? Cough....cough. I'm on my death bed....of soil. Look at me...look at my wilted, yellowing leaves and drooping stalks! You got lucky with good weather in the first few weeks but once those storms hit, hello root rot. Yes, that's right. My roots were rotted by the excess water, which means that no nutrients get to my stalk or to the leaves, or to the flower buds that would later turn into tomatoes. Hell, all you had to do was elevate the pot like Charlene instructed you to do and you would have noticed that there was no water dripping down underneath. You bastard. Me and my friend the heirloom tomato plant were going to produce some luscious tomatoes for your eating pleasure but instead you killed us and there will be no.....don't you dare call it a vegetable....fruit. We had high hopes for our lives - great tomatoes that could be eaten raw, could go on burgers, could make bruschetta, tomato sauce, maybe even enter a competition. The possibilities are endless really. Excuse me, were endless, you swine. You better pick the two bite-sized green tomatoes and enjoy their bitter not-yet-ripe flavor because they're going down with the ship. That's right my friend. Your inexperience, ignorance, and dare I say hubris caused the death of your most promising plants - the tomatoes. Sure, you may buy another tomato plant to replace me but no plant, I repeat no plant, will sprout up as fast as I did. Furthermore, I shall haunt the ground in which I lived, cursing anything you plant there. You may have holes in your pots now, but it is of no matter. All your plants shall experience the pain that I have felt this last week.


Sincerely regretting the day you were born,

Cherry Tomato Plant #1




(did I just write a letter as a tomato?)

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