Tomato Tragedy

Imagine your first trip to an amusement park.  Not the trip where you were in diapers and riding the little fire engines around in a circle - I mean the real trip.  The time you were finally big enough to ride the big kid rides.  You probably didn't go on them alone.  Most likely, you went with someone you trusted, someone who would take care of you, just in case, horror of all horrors, something bad happened.

So you get all strapped in, after possibly hours of waiting with anticipation for the big trip.  The ride begins to move.

And the car tips over, dumping you and all the other riders face first into the hard earth below.

This is the ride my poor poor tomato plants took today.  It was awful.  After saying a few choice and very naughty words, I lunged for my overturned cart .Yes, it was pretty much already overturned by the time my lighting fast reflexes kicked in.  My poor plants!  Many of their little stems were snapped in two, and a few more suffered near breaks.  I was running a triage center, trying to rescue the ones that could be saved, and sadly admitting that there wasn't much hope for a few of them.

My garden book warned me that tomatoes are a little less tolerant of transplanting than other veggies.  How true.

I planted them all anyway.  I couldn't bear to pronounce an official time of death.  I carefully tied the poor broken stems to support sticks, and I am hoping for the best.  Admittedly, there is not much hope for five of the fifteen plants.  They are so sad to look at, with their wilted leaves and broken stems tied to life support.  There are about three more plants that are in intensive care.  Their stems were severed, but their leaves are still in good shape, and looking at them, I can hardly tell they rely on a stick for support. 

Its tragic, I suppose.  I literally bent over forwards, in ninety degree weather, for several hours to plant these plants.  But what can you do but Grin and Baer It?