I Gave Up

Apparently the key to gardening success in Hawaii is to give up. A couple years I go I grew a small garden with limited success.  I figured that with a constant day time temperature of 80-85, and no chance of frost I should be able to at least count on year round fresh tomatoes from the yard.  I quickly learned that it was not so easy.  In the desert, all you had to do was add water and things would grow, here in Paradise, I was way out of my element.

I did battle with slugs, bugs, and birds.  I worked hard, and the harvest was meager.  I finally gave up.  It just wasn't worth it.

Last summer I got a crazy high water bill, so I shut off the lawn sprinklers.  Apparently an underground pipe is broken and the leak was bleeding my bank account.  We are renting, and the lawn guy the owners hired tried to fix it.  The owner of the house is older, and mostly deaf.  The yard guy is older, and English is not his first language.  I don't really think he totally speaks English.  It's more like he knows a few sentences. Talk about communication break down ....  My ability, and more importantly, desire, to work it out with the "creepy yard guy" is limited.  After one round of "change de balbs" not working, I was done.  It was just plain easier to shut off the sprinklers and the let the grass turn brown.


But Wendy, you say, "You live in Hawaii, in the tropics, why would you need to water the lawn?  Isn't everything naturally green and lush?"  Andy my answer to you is, "Uh, no ....".  Regular old lawn grass as we know it is not a tropical plant.  It does not grow well here.  The soil is too sandy, and full of iron. My guess is that the nearly constant temperature messes with it's programming as well.  Here on the Leeward side of the island, we are actually rather dry.  Dry is relative.  We are not dry like Arizona, or dry like the Utah plains.  We are dry as in, it doesn't rain too often, and when it does, it doesn't rain too much.  We are right on the ocean, so plenty of sea water exposure, but not enough good old fashion rain.  It rains more in the winter than the summer.  It is winter now, and the lawn has some green patches, but the traditional grass hasn't fared very well.  Mostly what is green are the native plants.

Soooo, yesterday I took a little stroll around the back of the house, just to see how things were looking.  With the lawn dormant, there has been no need for me to mow, so I haven't done a full perimeter check in quite a while.  I am watching where I step, all dogs owners learn this skill, and a small yellow flower catches my eye.  It looks familiar, but it seems so out of place that I can hardly believe it.   I do a quick scan, and there are more.  There are tomato plants growing WILD in my backyard!  These are not just meager sprouts either, they are thriving plants with yellow blossoms on them.  In no time, there will be actual tomatoes!  I looked around and noticed some other things sprouting that look like food.  Maybe a cucumber or a cantaloupe, it's hard to tell at this point.  Having jumped out of the planter, the basil is now thriving.

I was blown away.  All I had to do was give up, and the tomatoes would just grow on their own?  Why haven't the slugs eaten these plants?  They aren't growing in a planter, or a bucket, or even in a flower bed.  They are just out there, exposed, in the middle of a semi-dead lawn.

In the end, the jungle will win.  It is mightier than the sprinkler, the bug spray and the mesh nets.  I'm just grateful that apparently the jungle likes Italian food - tomatoes and basil!

UPDATE 2/17/2010:  There are now more spontaneous tomato plants growing in that area of the lawn.  There are many little green tomatoes where the flowers once were.  If the are not ready to harvest before we move, I say "Dig em up, and take them along!!"