I thought I had killed a plant just about every way possible. Overwatering and underwatering both can kill. Planting too deep, and planting too shallow can be equally lethal. Tractor tires running over a plant are more than a little detrimental.
The wind and hail flattened a few. Freezing temperatures can be brutal and so can excessive heat. Misadventures in transplanting, such as dropping an unsuspecting plant on the floor upside down in its pot, have been terminal events for some plants.
The list goes on and on. As I said, I thought I had completely explored all ways possible to inadvertently murder plants. However, that was before I spoke with my daughter on the phone yesterday.
She reported that they had managed to electrocute one hapless tomato plant! Yeeks! How on earth do you electrocute a tomato plant?
It seems they recently acquired two cats that showed excessive interest in the seedlings. The logical thing, to my daughter, was to build an electric fence around the seedlings to deter the cats.
You have to understand this is the same daughter who nearly gave me a heart attack in Arizona when she was in third grade. I had foolishly bought her an electronic lab kit to further her education. She also had an extensive Lego collection.
I was totally unprepared for what happened one peaceful hot afternoon when I went to the fridge to get some iced tea. Opening the door activated the electric eye on the lab kit on the bottom shelf.
The lab kit began a high pitched squeal and turned on the electric motor for the Lego contraption on the next shelf. The motor rotated an asymmetrical arm which clanked on the shelf at every turn, at the same time operating a pulley system. The pulley system made a red plastic lobster bounce up and down on the top shelf.
This event greatly reduced my regard for the values of education. Fortunately, I survived the experience, unlike the tomato plant.
The fence worked beautifully to discourage the kitties, but calamity struck when one tomato somehow fell on the fence. The current fried the poor thing. Maybe that one died for the greater good of the others, as the cats otherwise would have destroyed them all by now.
Add one more way to kill a plant to the list. And what, may I ask, is your most unusual way of causing the demise of a plant?
Note: You might want to check out the comments on this one!
Copyright © Lexi Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Sounds like instant tomatoe sauce to me. There has to be a way to market that. I think it is rather ingeneous. But the issue of the cathair in it…
Hmmm, I suspect scorched cathair would also leave a less than appetizing aroma to the tomato sauce. I will leave you to your own research…
Lexi
*WolfQueen leaps in with the can of Lysol spray from a previous topic(perhaps a totally different blog 0_o) and refreshes the air*
Whew, and just in the nick of time too!
Lexi
Hey, I just thought of a really creative way to kill a tomato plant. First you play nice soothing music in the greenhouse to lull it into a false sense of securuty. After 4 days of this, quietly and unobtrusively install a strobelight. Then leave. On the sixth day after they have now become lulled into complacency again and can concetrate on cell production sanely you march into the greenhouse with a boom box playing Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” carrying a dull knife and grinning insanely. I think they would all just commit suicide by leaping out of their pots onto the floor thereby dashing out their little tomato brains. See comment about tomato sauce. How is that for an ingeneous way to kill tomatoes?
The Caped Catsup Crusader
You aren’t coming in my greenhouse!
Lexi
Nothing can stop the Caped Catsup Crusader! Well, maybe mustard. You don’t have any of that laying around, do you? O_O
AHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha! *Leaps into the air in search of more greenhouses, trailing a few strobelights* On Dancer, on Prancer, on Heinz and Hunts! Wait, I am getting a little confused…”
I am now planting two acres of mustard around my greenhouse.
Can you say fried green tomatoes?
I thought I was the queen of killing the vegetable garden but I can’t top that! Thanks for making me laugh out loud, Lexi.
Laura,
Perhaps you are a better gardener than you thought!
My husband has been saying things about fried green tomatoes so that phrase has been banned in our household..
Doesn’t do any good, he keeps making jokes about frying up all my little green tomatoes anyway.
Lexi
you have t be pretty talented to be able to electrocute plants
hahahhaha i’ll never forget that story
why do you have green tomatoes thats just strange no offence
Tomatoes normally are green before they turn red. That is why I take issue with anyone harvesting green ones as I want the red ones, pretty simple really.