8. You Win Some You Lose Some

My normal morning would be waking up and spending some time on my phone in bed before, brushing my teeth, and heading down stairs opening all the curtains and windows, letting the light in. Then taking a breath of fresh backyard air and checking on the plants before watering as the heat and sun roll in by the hour.

However this weekend, it was my birthday meaning I went out of routine and shamefully did not do a piece of work this weekend, figuring I'd treat myself once. I did not know this came at a cost of forgetting to water my poor plants. This zucchini plant especially has faced its end. The carrot and beet seeds seems to have stopped growing as well. I was always skeptical of how long it actually took for the certain veggies to grow, I have a spreadsheet of the growth information that I should utilize more. In a way I felt extremely bad, not only for letting my child die, but also because I have wasted food. This made me realize the privilege that I unknowingly had. Of foods that aren't even in season in Washington and transported here for our luxury. Thinking of carbon emissions released along with the water waste to grow even a single plant. I have failed. I realized if I was going to grow my own food, I better do it right, being more intentional.

Thankfully, it looks like the other zucchini plant survived. The leaves for the most part look green but there is a very faint slight tinge of yellow. I feel around this time, from the past couple of weeks there should at least almost be little buds of veggies forming. I'm starting to get worried and plan on looking more into it.

The tomatoes on the tomato plant continues to grow more on different stems and in plentiful amounts. I really like the smell of the tomato leaves. The cherry tomatoes are large and circular though they haven't yet turned red. One of the famous dishes in Laotian culture is papaya salad. Tomatoes are one of the main ingredients for the juicy savory and sour concoction. I can't wait to see how these would taste in the dish.

This is the lettuce plant! To the left is the leaves curling inwards from the sun and the right is the next couple of days. There is noticeably one long outlier of the leaves that grew and shot up compared to the other leaves closer to the ground. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remove or thin this leaf. This is because most of the nutrients and energy would be more focused towards the longer leaf altering the flavor of the lettuce. Although I feel like I should get rid of it, apart of me is torn because the plant seems to be growing well versus the 3 that just passed.

Though this does lower my self confidence of growing plants, it has only intrigued me to try again, this time researching with more information. Treat it as a trial and error. I plan on removing the old plants that wouldn't grow. Already having a space with enough sunlight through the day for the plants I thought about why this happened. After reflecting and thinking about what made me unsuccessful, I would say the main factors might be weather, watering, and maybe the soil. When I thought about it, because there have been flowers previously, this could be that the nutrients were stripped from the bed. This is why farmers use cover crops to turn and allow nutrients back into the soil but I do not have access to these plants at this moment. I'll ponder and research more to see what else I can do.