Every morning and evening when I get down on my yoga mat to stretch, Ivy brings me a green swirly toy to play fetch.
She has all colors of these swirly toys, but for some reason she always brings me a green one.
I suppose she figures if I’m down on the floor anyway, I might as well play fetch with her. And so I do.
She will run after it, pick the swirly toy up with her paw and put it into her mouth. Then she brings it back to me and either drops it in front of me or puts it into my hand.
I’ve been painting a piece of furniture on vinyl in the living room, so she delicately winds her way around it to find her swirly toy. Ivy is one smart cat. And a real character to boot.
Tying My Tomato Plant:
I’ve been tying up the many long branches of my tomato plant to keep it off the ground. You can see jute entwined with the plant below.
This tomato plant is just a few inches from being 6 feet tall now. I’ve never had a tomato plant grow this tall. But then I’ve never planted cherry tomatoes before.
I ran out of trellis-like material to tie up veggies so I resorted to dragging some garden art over and using it to tie the cucumber to.
It’s kind of wacky looking but it does the job.
The Cucumber Plant:
The cucumber plant grows very quickly and twines around anything within reach.
If I have to move the pot it’s in, I’ll have to move the garden art right along with it because now they are conjoined.
The cucumber came up in a pot I had planted flowers in. But it was determined and grew up through the flowers. So did a tomato plant in a pot close to it.
It’s amazing how tenacious these plants can be.
I love to see zinnias blooming, although I have no idea where this pink one came from. The seeds I bought were yellow and purple.
Zinnias are hardy annual plants that, in my opinion, give you a lot of bang for your buck.
Charlie Waiting For Me:
Below is Charlie waiting in my chair for me to do whatever I got up to do so I’ll come back and sit with him.
He’s such a sweet boy!
I’m still working away on my project. The paint I ordered has been delayed, but it will all be finished soon.
The living room is an obstacle course with things out of place to accommodate my painting. I tried dragging the piece of furniture outside, but it’s just too heavy to be doing that.
There’s not much point of my doing stretches to help my sciatica if I’m going to lift pieces of furniture, I keep telling myself.
I will be glad when things are back in place because I don’t like disorder. And Ivy finds too many things to drag away and hide when I’ve got things everywhere and out of place.
If you drop something on the floor that Ivy can pick up, it is gone before you can even reach down.
Off she will go to put it in some hidey hole of hers. And you might never see it again.
Hello Brenda – glad to see all is well in your world. I love the garden art intertwined with the plants, i think that’s the best use for it! A lovely display –
Love your adorable fur-children. My Bichon, Bella is my emotional support doggie and my baby. Can’t believe how tall your cherry tomato plants are! Wow. I want to try to grow one in a pot on my tiny patio. This way it won’t; hopefully anyway, get too unruly. Oh, the garden art is great, too. Thanks for sharing.
I love the picture of Charlie waiting for you to come back and sit down. He sure is a precious little doggie. Makes me want to hug him.
We once had a cherry tomato plant grow as high as our roof edge….and we never ate all the tomatoes it gave us…I took a lot to church for others…finally got tired of picking them and let it be. As I recall it was some kind of volunteer plant too…it was right next to the support metal column of the patio overhang…maybe the metal was helpful in getting it to grow?? Plants are kind of strange sometimes. My guess is that you will get more tomatoes than you can eat from yours…maybe you can dry some for later use, or cook up some sauce to freeze or can.
Yes, the tenacity of plants. The volunteer milkweed that showed up in my yard last year came back this year – and in the driveway garden not only migrated (as it did in the area where it planted itself next to the AC compressor in my backyard) but I learned that it spreads by underground tentacles – and now I’ve been playing wack a milkweed as I do not want my garden bed taken over by this aggressive grower! It also migrated AWAY from the AC compressor in the backyard garden bed, but for now it is okay where it is growing. We’ll see where it comes up next year. It pains me to remove plants, cut them off or even dig them out (although digging out the milkweed at this point seems something that would be nearly impossible, it took hold so quickly), but I refuse to have my other flowers and shrubs overrun by a guest!
CHERRY TOMATOES ARE GREAT CLIMBERS, PROVIDED THEY ARE GIVEN SOME SUPPORT.I ONCE HAD ONE THAT SCALED UP THE CORNER OF MY PORCH AND ACROSS THE CEILING OF MY PORCH. I USED JUTE TWINE TO ATTACH THEM TO THE HOOKS IN THE CEILING. IT PRODUCED TOMATOES TILL THE FIRST FROST.
Pinch out any new flower spouts – it’s a bit leggy now and giving up too much strength to the plant instead of the fruit. And do be prepared to make chutney/pickle for the winter!!