Mon, 2009/03/30 - 10:25pm
Group-think request!
This tomato seedling does not look well. It was in my pro100 to get a "good start" in life... But things went unwell in that garden. His first ailment was to suddenly keel over - like bend all the way to the grow surface. I think that was right after I replaced the pro100 lights. He was persuaded to stand up again, I don't recall how. Then his seed leaves grew spotty. But another plant (an eggplant) had a much worse leaf ailment about then. So I yanked this guy out and planted him in Miracle Gro Organic Choice potting mix - as in picture. That was maybe 5 days ago. His first true leaf was a nub then. It's not a lot bigger now. Just not growing as rambunctiously as tomatoes ought. There was another seed in its hole. No second seedling ever appeared.
Anyway, I don't trust this plant, so sowed some more seeds directly in a pot this weekend, because I want one of this kind of tomato for the outdoor containers. ASAP. But - what to do with this one. Should I -
a. Toss it immediately! It's a public health threat to my other plants! or
b. Eh, just leave it be and see what happens.
Advice?
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 12:43pm
#2
Option A
It's not growing and you don't know what, if any, disease it has picked up. Better safe than to possibly infect other plants.
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 8:46pm
#3
Thanks for the feedback!
And I should have. Just tossed it. 
But it was unfolding its true leaves. They were bright and green and brave. 
I put it aside and transplanted something else.
I walked it up to my room, away from other tomato projects.
But then a fruit fly might bite its diseased leaves and carry disease to tomato plants downstairs.
I reflected that if I had a day job and lunch bunch, I'd have a group of women LTAO at me for such things, to keep me out of these silly predicaments.
And I put it outside in a kozy coat. It lives or it dies. 
In the pseudo-quarantine of the great outdoors.
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 9:18pm
#4
Now you sound like me! Can bare to part with any living thing! We have such big hearts!
P.S. I think this us pretty freakin cool!\
There's a grass roots effort, Eat The View who are asking President Obama to trade in his suit for some overalls and plant an organic vegetable garden at the White House.
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 9:29pm
#5
Usually I'm harder-hearted towards seedlings. This is just the tomato I was most looking forward to of this summer's selections, I gues...
Obama really doesn't strike me as the type. 
Could you imagine people trying to talk Reagan into something like this? Bush? Hilary or Bill Clinton?
They should campaign for the girls instead. 
Kids should do damage to the White House during their tenure, carve their initials somewhere, screw up the lawn, chip the china.
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 10:16pm
#6
I think it will happen. Obama is really into doing whats best for our plant & growing our own food fits the bill!
Chip the China! All I can say is... WHAT IN THE WORLD!
<Wearing Martha Stewart Gardening gloves> I say
Tue, 2009/03/31 - 11:54pm
#7
The worm blanket sounds like fun. 
We lived on a beach. Minnowing and clamming and fishing and lobster pots and... Had a yard, too, of course. But trying to grow vegetables in well-salted soil is a little frustrating. Grass grew. Kinda sorta. If you weren't too picky about what kind of grass.
They are. The young misses Obama are quite dignified young ladies. But everybody chips the china now and then, or they're just repressed.
Wed, 2009/04/01 - 11:28am
#8
That sounds like fun!
We didn't have any grass either which we didn't mind. It would have gotten in the way of the mud pie making. My dad tried to grow some but he had 4 German Shepards and 3 kids running around so grass never had a chance!
Tue, 2009/04/14 - 9:39pm
#9
Jessi - thought of you today when I got some PAC spam to fight a campaign on the part of nefarious chemical companies to interfere with Michele Obama's organic veggie patch at the White House. 
Wed, 2009/04/15 - 10:02pm
#10
wow!!!
fight fight fight! Gardeners everywhere unite!
Wed, 2009/04/15 - 10:46pm
#11
I'm confident that Michele Obama can brush off anyone who tells her how to garden. With grace and humor.
I'm reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father now - a birthday present from my father. Excellent book! Dad went with my daughter and me to an inauguration-watching party. I was surprised - he teared up, the event meant a lot to him. I asked to borrow Obama's books (he bought The Audacity of Hope, as well). But he not only read and enjoyed them, but found himself referring back to them as Obama's presidency wore on. So instead he bought extra sets of them to give me and a friend in Italy. A very, very far cry from previous presidential campaigns making a bigl deal of someone smoking a joint once! (Thankfully, I don't remember which candidate that goofyness happened during.)
Wed, 2009/04/15 - 11:28pm
#12
Yes I'm sure she will!
I have The Audacity of Hope audio book read by Barack himself. Its a really great book.
Thu, 2009/04/16 - 12:38am
#13
I look forward to it. Still much enjoying the first book now. Well, if enjoying is quite the right word for this part - he's enmeshed in figuring out what organizing the black South Side of Chicago means. He's only a year older than I am. I suspect those of us from the "Allentown generation" will have it walk with us for life, like my parents drag the Great Depression along in their psyches. No trouble at all picturing those blocks in Chicago. Walked the same ones in Harlem and New Haven round about then. 
I expect his tale brightens when he teams up with Michele. But I'm more looking forward to the part where he goes to meet the family in Kenya.
Since you don't trust it and you've sewed more seeds I'd yank it, there's plenty more where that one came from.