This year I’ve been trying to reclaim our crappy balcony, so-called because it is a) too small to accommodate a chair or two without blocking the storm door, b) rusty and peeling, and c) quite often covered with sizable blotches of pigeon droppings, thanks to the birds’ penchant for nesting above our ancient air-conditioning unit.  (That said, the pigeons supply genuinely exciting times for our indoor cats.)

The downward-facing wide-angle photo below naturally skews the perspective of what’s out there; it’s becoming veritably (by my modest standards) lush.*  Plants are thriving**, and the oregano is well on its way to achieving global domination, as is its wont.

I have a big ol’ 2-gallon watering can to help me with hydration duties.  All of the plants seem a-ok with my watering schedule, but there is one Difficult Child.  Can you spot the Drama Queen Tomato?

While the other plants thrive happily, the Drama Queen Tomato staggers around dramatically, clutching its throat and whispering dramatically in a low scratchy voice.  Watch closely, and you can see it flail exaggeratedly.

So… thirsty!

My tongue ith swelling in my mouth!

I love you, little tomato plant.  But I’ll happy to see you mellow out with age.

* Pictured, from L to R: basil, Roma tomatoes, lavender, a lemon-scented geranium, thyme, some kind of sweet red peppers, chives, remarkably long-lived violas (thanks to our otherwise crappy summer weather), oregano on the way to world domination, Drama Tomato, and strawberries.

** I have to give a shout-out to McGee and Stuckey’s excellent The Bountiful Container, which is perfect: it’s a book exclusively about raising edible plants in containers.  It has enough well-organized information to make me feel like I’m capable of growing nearly anything competently, but not a confusing overabundance of facts; the authors also don’t labor under the delusion that the book’s readers have the space or the money to keep a fully-stocked assortment of 10 different soil blends on hand at all times.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 2:56 pm and is filed under bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.