Filling the Empty Hours

I have been known, in the past, to liken the life of a freelancer to being "semi-retired." It's true I have more flexibility in scheduling my days and once you cut out all the inefficiencies of working in an office and the time it takes to commute, I find I actually have a little more free time than most folks, but recently I realized that I am SOOOO NOT retired. Semi or otherwise.

Not only have I been wrestling with a sweet overabundance of work, which forced me to sacrifice some "fun" plans this weekend and actually work on a Sunday (I believe God will forgive me for making sure the mortgage gets paid), but I have no time to figure out what's going on with my Strawberry Orange Oxheart tomatoes.



All of her friends and neighbors in our tiny garden already have ripening fruit (see snaps below), and although she has produced many, many flowers, they all seem to be turning brown and falling to the dirt un-pollinated. Someone said it's because of the bee shortage, but that doesn't really make sense since all the other plants around her seem to be doing really, really well. Will says the bees just didn't like her pollen, but I can't imagine they care much. Someone else suggested she might just be sterile. How sad. (Especially with all her neighbors producing - must be tough). Even the cheap-o bag-o-cherry tomatoes I bought from one of our niece's school fundraisers is going wild, producing very large fruit for a "cherry" plant.

I keep looking at the dead and dying buds with despair. I even tried shaking the stems like we did with our hydroponic tomatoes to see if I could encourage non-bee pollination (it worked in the kitchen). But no dice. And as I went out this morning to take pictures and document all the plants' growth, I thought "I wish I had time to really research this and figure out what's happening and how to fix it. But I really can't because I have three three-minute video scripts to write, four short employee profiles, one long employee profile, two more interviews to schedule and conduct to finish that case study that was due two weeks ago, and about 20 pages to edit and get back to various clients."

I will be a dedicated gardener in retirement. That is my promise to the plants. For now, sadly, I have no time to care as much as a I should. (And don't even get me started on all the books I want to read right now.) I will have no trouble at all filling eight+ hours per day with gardening, reading... OH and COOKING! How could I forget cooking! A restaurant-quality feast every day in retirement. Yes. Ah, yes.

Our '08 babies as of July 21, below.

Gold Medal Yellow:

Green Zebra:

Brandywine:

Black Prince:

Riesentraube:

Cherry (in hanging bag):