The Old Garden Switch-a-roo

Last week, we made a desperate decision to try to save the last few plants holding on for dear life in the garden boxes. We purchased some big pots from Walmart and got to work digging out the remains of some pretty puny vegetables.

This morning, a week after the transplant, some are starting to look better. We were able to save both cherry tomato plants, which are growing adorable mini-tomatoes this very second (I've had to remind myself not to get too stoked since those same tomatoes were on the plants when purchased...and haven't grown or done a single thing in the month we've had them). We saved one of the six Better Boy Hybrid tomatoes, and one of the five Roma tomatoes. It blows my mind that after so much hard work and excitement over a huge garden, that this is all we have left. The visions of endless jars of homemade salsa and marinara sauce in my pantry have quickly faded to just chocolate chips. Which will be eaten by me eventually as a direct result of Garden Grief Syndrome.

We "planted" the Basil pot in between the tomatoes since we read doing so will make better-tasting tomatoes. Also, the Basil will supposedly help repel bugs that normally eat 'maters. Hopefully this holds true even if the Basil roots aren't anywhere near the actual plants but are hanging out in their own pot.

Speaking of Basil, I skipped out to my garden last night and plucked several large leafs from my healthy and happy plant (hey, one out of ten isn't bad, right?!). I chopped it up and added it into my homemade Alfredo sauce, which only made it better. Hubby slurped it up for dinner and even shed a tear or two because it was so yummy. Don't worry...we also had a salad with dinner to counteract the forty-million calories found in made-from-real-cream Alfredo. Now you know why it was so good!

I like the idea of having things in pots. If they start to get a little scorched from the overly-friendly sun, we can move them to shade or even move them inside, if necessary. I want to do our entire garden in pots, just to have this flexibility. Thanks to the crappy dirt in the boxes, I may very well get my wish for the next few years until Hubby has prepped the soil for plant life once again. He bought a composter and is already decomposing stuff inside. It's his new baby, and he is dedicated to turning our garden boxes into mad vegetable-producing machines as soon as he can.

Hopefully the pots will work for now. It must be on my mind more than I thought, because I had a dream last night about my Better Boy Hybrids. I went outside and found their stalks to be two inches thick! Very Jack-and-the-Beanstalkish, if you ask me. Unfortunately, it was just a dream. When I went out to water this morning, they stems were still tiny and nothing to brag about to our neighbors. Oh well. We will see if they survive transplant shock and can start to thrive in nutrient-rich potting soil.