Goodbye, Tom

It is time to finally retire Tom the Tomato plant for the season. He stopped growing about a month or more ago; the tomatoes weren’t getting any bigger or greener despite Dave watering it three times a day. We think the root system didn’t have anywhere to expand so it just sort of stopped doing anything.

We were hoping that something would happen with it and we even added fertilized soil hoping it would help the plant grow more. But as you can see it’s now dying with the cold weather and inability to expand its root system; so we’re taking it down for the year. Over all, our experience with the Topsy Turvy is that it grew a small tomato plant, produced a handful of tomatoes, then didn’t do anything. If you are considering getting one, don’t. It’s not worth your time or effort for just a few tomatoes.

Maybe we’ll try using the Topsy Turvy grower again next year so we can get a few tomatoes before it stops growing, or maybe we’ll just have to plant a tomato plant in the ground, the old fashioned way.

Goodbye, Tom!

A lazy weekend

For the first time in a while we have had absolutely no plans for this weekend. Nowhere to go and nothing scheduled to do. It was such a nice break from being on the go for so many weeks in a row. Since we had no plans we were able to plan some fun activities and get things done around the house - like attack that pile of laundry that has built up over the last few weeks.

On Saturday morning we had time for a nice, long Geocaching hike to a local landmark in our town. Other hikers and mountain bikers were warning us about rattlesnakes they had seen on the trail. Ugh! This was a new trail and I thought I was to be clear of snakes on this hike. We still continued on and luckily didn't see any snakes. It took us a while to find the cache once we got to the coordinates - this was pretty well hidden! But we were successful! We exchanged a Ice Age 3 pencil topper (that we acquired from a box of cereal) for an interesting trinket referred to as a "geocoin". Geocoins come in all shapes and sizes, and can be tracked from place to place when each finder logs it on the Geocaching website. Based on a tracking code on the item you can see where it came from and how far it has traveled. We've never found one before and it looks like this one has traveled a long way. We're planning a trip this coming weekend to take it to another Colorado location for someone else to find.

We spent the rest of the day on Saturday just hanging around, taking a trip to the dog park and enjoying each others company with a little bit of grocery shopping thrown in for good measure. It is so nice to be able to have time to just spend one-on-one time with Dave catching up and spending quality time together. It's definitely something we don't get to do very often!

On Sunday we got down to the business of cleaning and attacking our messy office for a solid two hours. Seriously, that room was in desperate need of some cleaning and organizing attention - there were still unpacked boxes in there from when we moved in almost a year ago! We made a lot of progress and the room is almost clean and organized. I think a couple more two hour work sessions will take care of the rest of the mess. After our clean up efforts I was feeling domestic so I attempted to make a loaf of zucchini bread for the first time and it was a great success! I even added some chocolate chips to the batter for a special treat. Feeling pretty confident, I attempted a Brie en Croute with apricot preserves and brandy soaked dried cherries. Pair that with some grilled chicken and asparagus and we had a fantastic dinner. I felt like such a domestic diva after conquering two baked items in one day - I never have this much success.

Dave's hard work remembering to water Tom the tomato plant has paid off - we have tomatoes! So far we have picked five ripe tomatoes from the plant to use on salads, hamburgers and just as a snack. Yum! There are lots more green and growing tomatoes and we are looking forward to having many, many more tomatoes over the next few months!

I hope you all had a great weekend too. Happy August and Happy Shark Week! Haha!

Tom update

We started growing Tom back at the beginning of May and I thought it was time to show you how he is doing so far. Right now there are five large and still growing tomatoes as well as five smaller tomatoes which are just beginning to grow!

I must say, all of the credit for Tom doing so well is going to Dave because he has done such a good job remembering to water that plant every morning (and sometimes in the afternoons too).

I have done my best to stay away from Tom because I kill plants. In fact, I have managed to kill a Gerber daisy plant and a rosebud plant and have almost finished off an orange star plant all in the last month.What can I say, I'm just that talented. This is why I have fake flower pens and plastic plants in my office at work and none of my friends ask me to water their plants when they go out of town.

Anyway, we're looking forward to some ripe red tomatoes soon. I hope they taste as good as they're looking!

Baby Tom-ato

Good news! Tom the tomato plant has finally begun to grow some tomatoes! Dave has really been taking care of that plant and I'm so glad his hard work is paying off.

Right now there are three baby tomatoes and a few more flowers waiting to turn into fruit. We can't wait until they get bigger in the coming weeks and we can pick one off and eat it. Yum!

Meet Tom

Meet our Topsy Turvy tomato plant, affectionately nicknamed Tom. This is Dave's new venture for the growing season.

Green thumbs do not run in my family and every time I have tried to grow flowers in hanging planters on our balcony I have failed miserably. My plants either dry out, drown, freeze or are otherwise eaten by bugs. With Dave in charge now we hope to have some tasty tomatoes to eat all season long. Stay tuned to see how this turns out!