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Tuesday 30 April 2013

The tale of Tommy...

the tumbling tiger tomato.




Tommy is the sole surviving member of a band of brothers
sown by me months ago.
He was one of five in a mortgage-inducing packet.
'Contents - five seeds'
That won't be right I think , as I open the
pack and peer in...
Well you could have knocked me down with a feather,
sitting coyly in the bottom were exactly five frigging seeds.

I carefully tucked them up in their beautifully
prepared bed, sat back and waited.
With warm bottoms and Black Russians as compatriots
they couldn't fail.  The Russians romped away leaving
the timid and shy tumblers to bring up the rear.
The Black wee beasties succumbed to trench rot and one after the other 
wilted and died.  All hope was pinned on the TT's.
Slowly, shyly they emerged looking feeble, but with an air of triumph.

Then one morning I was dismayed to find three had gone the way
of their Russian chums.
Two were left.  With red-cross-emblazoned matronly
chest, starched white napkin, Hattie Jacques-like
pinned on my head, I rushed them to intensive care.



With blue light flashing, the patients clutched to my heaving bosom,
 I scurried down the garden.
 In the balmy warmth of the house,
I placed them gently into an incubator (clear plastic bag), 
peace reigned, until Tommy's brother
drooped and died.
Gallantly he marched on, well to say marched is a tad over egging the pudding.
Gallantly he limped on, until one day I thought, now is the time he braved the world.
Carefully, for all the world looking like a stripper peeling off a stocking,
I lowered the plastic comfort blanket.
The shock put him back three seasons...
still he clung to life... just, and this is how you see him this morning.
Now if I was a betting woman, I don't think he's got a fart in a thunderstorm's
chance of producing any offspring...

What do you think?




4 comments:

  1. Lordy - the battles we have to fight! I'm afraid I refuse to do it in the garden. I encourage anything that flowers and looks pretty without my resorting to poisons, pest killers or artifical fertilisers. That's all!
    My tender, loving care is spread very thin already, I'm afraid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Organical is the name of the game NIlly.

      LLX

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  2. Not putting any money on that one!!!!! Ten out of ten for perseverance! Should the worst happen you can console yourself that you really did everything you could xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is now in the greenhouse looking just a sickly. I've given it my best shot Jayne.

      LLX

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