Last year I wrote about Audrey III several times. Audrey was the tomato plant I was growing right beside me here in my computer room. She grew over 15 feet tall, and I had to fasten her to the walls to keep her standing upright. I artificially inseminated the blossoms as I don’t allow bees in my house, and there were no bees around anyway due to “Colony Collapse Disorder” which hit the bee population. I eventually had about 12 tomatoes on Audrey which was extremely exciting for me. They looked like mutants, not shaped like the store-bought ones I usually eat, but I ate every one of them. When I eventually took her down when she was withering, I decided not to do it again this year. I even felt like I was withering after the work of taking her down. But when I saw an ad a few months ago in the “Parade” magazine, I couldn’t resist and ordered another one. So they sent me a few seeds and I planted two of them. Now I have two plants covering one of my windows right beside me. I cut the tops off as I wasn’t going to let them get like they were last year. Just yesterday I noticed some blossoms, so I did my thing with the AI and hopefully Audrey IV will produce. This is very exciting for me!

I’ve become very interested in growing some of my own food. What I would really like to grow is gasoline to put into my Volvo which doesn’t get the best mileage around, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, so I’ll stick with vegetables. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to grow your own food right where you live? But since I live in a condo, they don’t allow vegetable gardens in the manicured areas surrounding each condo. Don’t they remember Victory gardens? They’re in style again. Anyway, I decided to grow some carrots in a pot next to the tomato. So I planted a bunch of organic seeds but neglected to thin them as they came up. So I had a huge mess of carrots that I eventually pulled up and ate, but they were very small . . . I mean very, very small! But they tasted wonderful. I had some seeds left over, so I did another planting. This time I tried to put some space between the tiny seeds which turned out quite well as I now have a bunch of carrots growing that may produce real carrots. I also have chives planted in the same windows that I cut up on baked potatoes regularly.

But I wasn’t satisfied with that, so I decided to plant potatoes on my back deck in a big pot. I’ve never done that before except when my dad and I planted them on our farm. I used the same picture that I used on a posting about a year ago because that’s the only picture I have of my dad and me planting potatoes, and I love it, so I used it again. I didn’t really remember how to plant potatoes, but I cut up some potatoes with eyes in them and planted those in my pot. And guess what? I now have about 6 big potato plants growing! I don’t know when I’m supposed to dig to see if I have potatoes, but maybe there’ll be blooms and then it will be time. In the meantime, they are growing and growing – they’re very tall and just keep on, but with no blooms. They look gigantic out there! I hope they’ll give me a sign when it’s time to dig. I can hardly wait to see what’s under all the growth!