Kyle and I are both originally from Vermont. I think this means that we are supposed to have green thumbs. My theory comes from the fact that when I was in college just about every person that learned I was from Vermont asked “Did you grow up on a farm?” To set the record straight, neither Kyle nor I grew up on a farm.
Perhaps as a tribute to our “heritage,” each year we try and grow our own vegetables. We certainly try to prove our thumbs are green, but the various critters in our neighborhood (squirrels, raccoons, and the occasional opossum) and lack of adequate sun in our yard always seem to do us in. We have yet to yield a successful crop of anything besides basil. Weak, I know. Some would call us stubborn, others thickheaded. We think we are persistent and just haven’t found the best method yet. Besides, who really wants to lose some Darwinist experiment to squirrels? Not me.
The past couple of years we have decided to focus our attention on growing just basil and tomatoes. We think we have the basil down. It grows in pots on our porch and seems to do relatively well. Critters aren’t interested, the porch is sunny enough. The tomatoes are another story.
We’ve tried various gardens dedicated to tomatoes, moving them to different places each year to try and get them the maximum sun in our mostly shady yard. In most cases it worked. Until the critters decided to eat our entire crop, usually when the tomatoes got to a nice size, but were still green. Well, I guess “eat” isn’t the correct word, “waste” is probably more appropriate. Apparently taking one bite from each tomato, dropping it on the ground, and then moving on to the next and repeating the process is the preferred method of animals trying to break human spirit. *Sigh*
So, will this year be any different? Will we officially give up and resort to the local Farmers Market? Uh, no. That would be the sane thing to do. This year we are putting our eggs in the Topsy Turvy basket, along with a few other methods. Some of our neighbors are also doing the Topsy Turvy experiment. Here you can see our dueling Topsy Turvys…
During the summer months we’ll give you Sunday updates on our progress on which method is working best. Our fingers are crossed that Year 5 of the tomato experiment finally yields positive results. For us, not the animals…
