I've always wanted to have a vegetable garden unfortunately, I live in a
city neighborhood where backyards are at a premium so planting a garden
is next to impossible. Here's a picture of my backyard that I share
with a neighbor. I think it's all of about 4' X 6' in size, although
the grass is pretty green despite the lack of rain we've had this
summer.
Last year I decided to try container gardening. I have a friend who has had great success growing tomatoes and such on her porch. I bought pots and soil from a garden center and seedlings from our local farmer's market. The zucchini and pumpkin plant my nephew begged me to try and grow had
tons and tons of blossoms but never did go past that point. My tomato and green pepper plants grew nice and tall and actually started to grow vegetables. I'd go out every morning before work and look at them and water them if necessary. And then the squirrels and a homeless bunny found my plants. Every tomato and pepper had a bite out of it. Soon, the squirrels started taking the smaller tomatoes off the vine and leaving the half-eaten pieces on the sidewalk around my porch. So while the wildlife enjoyed my efforts at container gardening last year, I didn't so I decided not to try again this year.
And then about a week ago, I noticed this plant growing out of a crack in the cement along side my back porch stairs. Yep, it's a tomato plant that must have seeded itself from one of the squirrel's left overs that I missed cleaning up. I tried to take a close up of where it's growing out of the crack but you can't really tell. (See next picture.) So I'm watering it and have tied it up to a porch post and am keeping my fingers crossed. It has a ton of blossoms, but no actual fruit yet.
The next thing will be who will harvest any tomatoes that might grow -- me or the squirrels. I'm betting on the squirrels.But even if I don't get any tomatoes, it's pretty cool to see Mother Nature at work and how one partially eaten tomato a year ago managed to grow into a brand new plant this year.
