I had to spend an extended time at work (ie: I was on duty > 24 hours) and when I came home today Disaster had struck! See the damage for yourselves (click to enlarge). That's right, the weight of the plant overcame the capacity of the stem to hold it up! This past sundays post was like some kind of horrible foreshadowing.
Upon seeing the casualty I took immediate action:
Step 1. Get a camera.
Step 2: Document the evidence
Step 3: Rack my brain for the location of any string or twine that I might own.
Step 4: Conclude that I don't own any string or string like material (in hind site, I have about 100yds of dental floss that would have worked)
Step 5: Get some super long twist ties that I had been saving for a rainy day and a create a make shift support system.
I did a visual inspection of the stem area when the most stress occurred. No permanent damage appears to have been sustained. The next 24 hours will be critical to this plants life. Sadly, I have duty again tomorrow so I won't be able to check on it until Friday afternoon. My plan is to shore up the other plants with dental floss and hope they make it till Friday. The supports are so unobtrusive that you don't even notice them in a carefully framed head on picture.
Check out the other harrowing adventures of my tomato plants here in the Garden index.
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