GASTRONORMOUS

A the beginning of Summer I embarked on a grand, or actually rather tiny, experiment: not being blessed with a garden, I decided I wanted to try to grow some veggies in a window box. So I bought at the Fort Greene Farmers’ market a “Sweet Gold” yellow cherry tomato plant, a jalapeno plant, and a basil plant, along with some ornamental heather to put in my window box.

When I planted them that day, I noticed that the plastic information tags that came with the plants all said that the plants should be planted in rows 12 inches apart. Since the entire planter isn’t much more than 24 inches long, this wasn’t really an option. But I was undeterred!

The next morning, I rushed to check on the plants with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning rushing to see what Santa brought. I was pretty sure that the Saint Tomatous had not granted me ripe fruit in 12 hours’ time, but still, there was anticipation of progress in my gaze as I approached the window. It all looked about the same as when I planted it, except for the basil, which was gone! Disappeared! Ripped out by the roots! it seems that a culinarily sophisticated squirrel fancied himself a little herb salad for dinner. (Btw, if you happen to notice an especially fragrant squirrel in the area of Fort Greene, please shoot him a hairy eyeball on my behalf.)

After a couple weeks, the plants had tripled in height, and I saw the promise of blossoms on the tomato plant, but the fruit of which the blooms are supposed to be harbingers never materialized! As my disappointment grew, I couldn’t help but notice that also growing was a cloud of tiny white insects around my window box. The dreaded white flies! That was what was keeping my plants from bearing fruit!

Being a woman of action, I went to Chelsea Garden Center and asked what they recommended for the problem. The staff pointed me to an Organicide made of sesame oil, fish oil, and other human-friendly ingredients. Over the next couple weeks, we emptied the bottle onto our plants, but the white flies persisted, though the problem was lessened somewhat.

I then turned to my mom, a certified green thumb, who suggested dumping a mixture of Murphy’s oil soap and water over the afflicted plants. I haven’t bought that yet (I looked at the Target here in Brooklyn, but of course they didn’t have it. A surprise to no one who frequents that store!), and honestly, I was beginning to feel that maybe the small yield I would ever get from these plants was not worth all the trouble.

But, lo! last week, I notice two tiny tomatoes, a bit bigger than marbles, on my plant! I excitedly called the Hubs and announced that there were two tomatoes on the plant–one for each of us! The next day, there miraculously also appeared blooms on the jalapeno plant! still no action on the hanenero that I purchased to replace the basil.

So, here I present to you the fruits of my labor (how often do you mean those words literally?).

Note: in case you are wondering what white flies look like, they are clearly visible on the underside of a leaf in the upper right corner of the jalapeno blossom photo.