Apparently, I dropped off the face of the earth for a short time. It wasn’t necessarily intentional, beloved readers, for me to stop writing for more than a week. I missed you, actually. Over the last few days, I decided to spend time with people in person rather than people via the internet. The Electrician, now officially my future husband, and I have been visiting friends and family, celebrating my birthday and our engagement, and enjoying the four-day extra long weekend he had over Canada Day.

I’ve been thinking about what I should blog to get back on the horse–admittedly, my “horse” is actually more like a polka dotted hippopotamus–and write something new. After thinking about describing the process of having my engagement ring made, or the race to the finish of this past (nutso) school year, or the fun we had announcing our betrothal to our loved ones, I was at a loss for a blog topic to kick off the summer edition of Blue Speckled Pup. When Sherman stole half a pound cake off the counter this morning, his pastry snatching nearly became a post, but I decided to save that for tomorrow, when I will discuss my recent baking failures. It’s a basically unheard of struggle, so stay tuned to share in my considerable distress.

Today, I’m going to write about my tomatoes. For those of you who have been reading other, less classy blogs, “tomatoes” is not a euphemism for something racy. I am really and truly growing fruit in my back yard. Since Sherman likes to sprinkle all surfaces back there to ensure all visitors are aware the yard’s contents are well and truly his, I decided to attempt container gardening this year. I bought two big plastic tubs at Wal-Mart and The Electrician drilled holes in the bottom in a carefully plotted pattern to allow optimal drainage (and also because he’s pleased by any opportunity to use power tools). I then planted four tomato plants, including one heirloom variety I picked up at a highschool plant sale, and waited for the magic. I’m working on yellow pear-shaped tomatoes, sweet millions, Japanese black truffle, and another variety of wee grape tomatoes whose name escapes me.

So far, things are going well. As far as I can tell, Sherman has no interest in peeing on my tomatoes, possibly because he would need to launch himself into the air to accomplish a successful dousing. I am also pleased by the effect of the spiffy blue tubs lounging in the full sun against my rather pathetic side fence.

Behold:

The containers are a decent size for the two plants each of them house, and I’ve used gift wrap ribbon to anchor them to the fence as they’ve grown. Doing so fulfills three purposes: one, I am using up a colour of ribbon that has never been called for by an actual gift in this house; two, my tomatoes look purty with their fancy supports; and three (least excitingly but most practically) ribbon does not wear out in the rain we have been pelted with almost every day over the past few weeks. Speaking of rain, the brutal downpour from three nights ago bent my poor tomato plants in the right-hand bin, so I’ll need to bring out the ribbon later today to fix the problem.

I’m the first to admit I’m a terrible gardener. So far, though, the highly-controlled process of growing tomatoes in containers seems to be right up my alley. I fertilize these puppies once a week, add ribbon as necessary, and I have needed to pull a grand total of one whole weed since I started this venture. This is my type of farming, folks.

Thanks for your patience while I got my act together to keep writing. I hope summer has been lovely for you so far.

copyright 2012: http://bluespeckledpup.com