Friday, December 2, 2011

Survivor

Not so long ago, my husband purchased a juicer. As I mentioned, making fresh juice uses a LOT of produce, and as a result, the juicer spits out vast amounts of dry food pulp. Our last attempt at composting failed miserably but I couldn't in good conscience just throw all that nutritious pulp in the trash can. Instead, we started dumping it in our unused flower beds, stirring it around in the soil and giving it an occasional sprinkle of water to get it to decompose.

A few weeks ago, as a I stood over the sink washing another load of dishes, I noticed a sprout of green in our otherwise barren flower bed. I figured it was a weed and went about my business. However, that "weed" has grown into what I believe is robust little tomato plant. Can you believe it? A store bought, non-organic tomato seed was ground to smithereens in a juicer and tossed out to decompose and it sprouted. It reached out, took hold of the soil and pushed it's way up toward the sun. That is one scrappy tomato seed!
There's actually two separate plants!
We have a cold front moving in this weekend and we may actually get a freeze (which is a big deal here in the desert) but I'm not worried. If my little tomato plant can overcome a catastrophic dismembering in a Breville JE98XL juicer, I know a little cold weather is going to be no big deal.



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4 comments:

  1. that so awesome! it happens to us all the time. I mean, we've got a small compost bin on our patio and from time to time I pull out growing plant. This year my husband used the soil that we had from our bin and used it to plant tomatoes, a few days later I saw small zucchinig plant growing in the same pot, and something else I couldn't recognize... . I love it when that happens!

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  2. btw, try this homemade deodorant recipe:

    http://frugallysustainable.blogspot.com/2011/11/homemade-probiotic-deodorant-that.html

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  3. I find the accidental plants are always more hardy. A pumpkin vine that grows from the compost pile always does well with no care at all!

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  4. You don't want to consume the pulp because that will breed tons of endotoxin in your body. Putting it in a compost like your doing is the best solution.

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