Vibrating Tomatoes and Pussy Pictures

It’s been an unusual week. For a start I’ve run my first ever 5 miles without stopping to walk! Might not be much to a lot of people, but it’s a long way from being able to just about manage 20 seconds to keeping going for 1 hour 6 minutes. And yes, many people would consider that slow… I have been known to do it a little faster with walk breaks! This is in the run up to my 10k: I’m hoping to do the Barts and the London 10K in Victoria Park on 15th June. I’ve actually missed entering via post, but should be able to enter on the day. Fingers crossed! And you can still sponsor me…

Meanwhile, the second bed in ‘my’ garden is still not ready, which means that some plants are still at home. And the tomatoes like it on my windowsill thank you very much, so they are now tied up, re-potted, and staying there. They are even flowering. Which I realised could be a problem… Most plants are pollinated by the wind, or insects, neither of which are available on my closed windowsill. So I looked into doing it myself. It turns out that tomatoes are not your average plant when it comes to pollinating! Apparently us humans have, without even trying, been selecting for self pollination, having taken tomatoes away from their favourite South American bumble bee. A light breeze or a gentle shake of the plants may be all that’s needed. But the more seeds per fruit, the better the shape and size. So if I want nice juicy round tomatoes I have to do something about it.

Tomatoes are buzz pollinators. When their favourite bee comes around, they hold them vertically, and buzz to encourage the release of pollen. So, if you want to pollinate tomatoes, you have to get buzzing. Apparently they used to have people going round greenhouses with vibrators… And my plants are in my window where all my neighbours can see… Actually I’m making use of a massager that my sister gave me. I don’t think it looks rude… Though I guess anyone looking up will wonder what the heck I’m doing rubbing my plants with what looks like some ‘alien machine’ prop off a SF show.

Meanwhile I’m starting a new job soon, as a cat sitter (and maybe occasional dog walker). This involves getting a picture for the website of me, with cat. So I spent about half an hour practically lying on Lizzie, setting camera on delay, holding it out in front of us, pressing the button, waiting for the flash… then, it being low on charge, it would do a tortoise into shell act and I’d have to turn it off and on, check the pic, set it up again… I must have managed about 20 goes, including lots out of focus, only showing one of us, or a nice close up of Lizzie’s chin… Finally I had something, and the batteries weren’t going to stand it anymore. Lizzie seemed to find the whole thing vaguely interesting, enough that she couldn’t be bothered removing herself anyway!

Of course the boss now wants one without cat for the dog walking website. I’m using batteries all over this week. Got to go find some spares…

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