by Lily Grace

Created on: August 16, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

The Story of the Leafless Tomato Plant

It was early summer and my boyfriend and I had made the trek to the weekly farmers market. It was there that I first laid eyes on this cute little heirloom tomato plant. We decided to take a browse at all the tomato plants there, but inevitably we went back and got that cute little one. We carefully carried it all the way home and then quickly went out to get potting supplies.

We nurtured that plant and made sure to read every article we could about growing tomatoes. We watched it grow a little bit each day, before our very eyes. Let me tell you, it was quite exciting. Especially since, it was my first ever tomato plant.
Then came time for us to go on a trip, so we dropped the now big tomato plant off at my moms. The whole week we were gone I wondered if any of the little green tomatoes had started to ripen and turn red. When we got back, it was a tragedy that we met. The tomato plant had somehow developed a disease and the leaves were turning yellow and falling off. Quickly, I looked online and sure enough it was a fungus. If we didn't do something soon the plant would die. Well, I could not let that happen.
I read spraying garlic on the leaves would help the disease from spreading, but first you had to trim off all the diseased leaves.
"Oh no", I thought. "The tomato plant will be bald!"
So we trimmed off all the diseased leaves, leaving only a couple sorry leaves left on that plant. We sprayed it every day and soon enough we had our first ripe tomato, then a second, a third and well you know the drill.
Today, the tomato sits out my window and it is still kind of bald. It's rather sad looking, but it still keeps plugging away. I am just glad we were able to save my very first tomato plant, even if it is bald.

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