surprise! it's a tomato (plant)

 Sometimes I surprise even myself with my nonsense.  I have this "potted plant" on my kitchen window sill.  I don't remember what the original plant was, but one sad day it became just a pot of dirt on my windowsill as the life which inhabited it passed on to plant heaven.  He gives and takes away ... 

One day I noticed that my carrots were sprouting, so I planted them in the empty window sill pot.  They grew into pretty little plants, but I learned later they would never grow into a carrot again.  Carrot greens are eatable though, so I cut them and put them in my salad.  They tasted like- nothing basically.  Then all the stems of my carrot leaf spouts died.  He gives and takes away ...

One day my sweet potatoes were spouting, so I planted them.  They grew some pretty little stalks with bright green leaves.  I know some people grow sweat potato vines for decoration, but I wondered if a sweet potato would also grow.  I also wondered how you know when your sweat potato root was ready to be harvested.  It all seemed somewhat mysterious.  In the midst of all my wondering, I guess I forgot to water them- or maybe I was just using the wrong water.  We have filtered water in the house- not so great for the plants.  I have to get water from other people, or rainwater- sort of a hassle. Anyway, all the pretty little leaves fell off so I pulled the stems.  surprise I found this tiny, baby- barbie sized sweet potato!  He gives and takes away and gives again!

I left a few sweet potato stems because they still had a leaf or two.  Those little guys were working hard on their comeback when I noticed a couple dozen little spouts popping up one day.  I thought some little piece of potato had really started giving its all.

Then, to be honest, I didn't really pay that much attention to them at all.  I mean I know it's on my windowsill, and I look at it every day, but well- the next thing I knew those little sprouts were 7 inches tall.  And I also noticed that those little spouts were definitely not sweet potato sprouts.  In fact, it looked to me like I was growing a whole passel of tomato plants.

It occurred to me that I had no clear recollection of planting any tomato seeds.  SURPRISE! It's a tomato (plant)!

I had bought some tomato seeds with the intent of planting them- but then I lost them.  

I think this is what happened.  

Last summer - my friend said, "Come over to our house and pick some figs. We have so many figs."  Now, I'm not a big fig eater- I mean who is? but it was mid-pandemic and we hadn't been out much so that sounded grand.  Off we went to pick figs.  We picked some figs, and they showed us the other parts of the garden where they were growing some melons or cucumbers or some such and there were tons of tiny grape tomatoes just dropping off the vines.  I said something about them, and they said, "Well, we didn't really plant those- they are volunteers from last year's garden.  You can take as many as you want, we harvest at least a bucket full every week."  So- I took some of those tasty little rubies. I mean a homegrown tomato is about 1000% better than a store-bought one.  (Which makes me oh-so-sad that I can't manage to grow them at home.)  

A few of those little tomatoes had some cracks or specks or blemishes or something- in any case, they didn't get eaten.  They dried up and turned into little tomato raisins. I vaguely remember putting a little cup of dried-up cherry tomatoes in the fridge.  I also vaguely remember finding those same dried-up tomatoes a good while later when I was cleaning out the fridge and wondering why I had put them in the fridge in the first place.

That is the mystery.  I guess I put those little withered gems in some dirt to see what would happen next- and then promptly forgot about the whole thing.    HOW WONDERFUL.

I'm not so bad at growing the tomato plants, it's the actual tomato that stumps me.  

We're going again this summer!  Tomatoes or bust!

The other day I noticed my celery was sprouting ... I guess I need a new window sill pot.