Tomatoes and Failures

More tomatoes, yes.  I cooked and  cooked  tomatoes today...

Cooking tomatoes

...and had lots of  time to think.  I thought carefully about the fountain.  It is a failed fountain...

Failed fountain

...because I cannot keep it looking beautiful.  Algae in all its variety, green strings, suspended pea-soup, even orange sheet algae, plus hard water, have ruined the tiles.  The fountain is hard to clean.  The pump sits in a well and the well fills with muck.  It is in full sun so the algae grows and grows.  And next to the fountain is my Restio, my imprisoned Chondropetalum tectorum, resigned to a pot, looking miserable, and next to it a potted mint that will never be let out of it's little-prison pot.  There is no soil left in the mint-pot.  It is solid roots.  I'm cruel to mint.  It laughs at my cruelty by blooming.

Failed restio

And my failed bed-by-the-gate.  It's a  jumble of leftover plants stuck there because there was no room elsewhere.  A rose in too much shade, hydrangeas in too much sun.  A begonia stuck in the middle of it all, jammed too close to the wall, lush but out of place.

Failed bed

But as I cook cook cook tomatoes, I decide that in context, maybe the bed-by-the-gate isn't quite so horrible as all  that.  If you don't look carefully, it's not so bad...
Failure in context

...and ruined tile or not, Mr. and Mrs. Lesser Goldfinch love the fountain, and are sustained by it...

Mr. & Mrs. Lesser Goldfinch

...and I feel better, until I realize there are more tomatoes to cook.

Tomato surplus

Italian Tomato PressVelox Tomato Press / Tomato Strainer - Made in ItalyThe Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: Sedges, Rushes, Restios, Cat-Tails and Selected Bamboos

Comments

  1. Hoov, that fountain is such a beautiful structure. Maybe plant it? Or leave as is for the birds, a good enough reason. I had a bubbler fountain for years but the pump finally gave out this spring and I miss it.

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  2. Oh my, you sure do have a large amount of tomatoes, but they look like you are making good use out of them! Okay, I don't see a failure at all, I think your colorful looking plants in your courtyard look awesome! I did not look close!

    Good luck with your sauce!

    Nancy

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  3. Denise, so true that the birds are a good enough reason. I'll resolve that tile problem somehow.

    Thank you Nancy! I enjoyed your "notes"! :)

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  4. On the upside, your garden is home to a little known species of wildlife: the dwarf garden polar bear.

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  5. Very little known, Livia. But much loved! :)

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