FEELING HOPEFUL

Normally it looks a bit like the Sahara desert around here come late August. But not this year! This year everything is green, green, green, and blooming! The thing I'm most excited about its this -- another of those surprises that just showed up on my doorstep one day, thanks to Dear Hubby.

It's a tomato planter, complete with metal climbing support and rolling wheels, so you can follow the sun if need be! I never had much luck growing them down in the garden, but Hubby thought maybe if we could grow them up here on the balcony, where the deer can't get to them, we might have a fightin' chance. Unfortunately, it arrived in late July, the worst time in the world to plant anything in central Texas! I didn't get a chance to warn him before he had that cloth liner filled with potting soil and planted with two Black Krim tomato plants. Which turned out to be a good thing, since we ended up having one of the coolest, wettest Augusts in history! It's also a good thing that the planter came with an extra section of trellis you can add on later, since those plants must've grown a foot a week!

Just when I was getting all revved up about how lush and beautiful they were, with no sign of disease, and lots of blooms, I noticed that on the bottom half, where they had finished blooming, there was no sign of any tomatoes forming. Then it was on to full-blown panic. What if the bees can't find it up here, and it didn't get pollinated? We get plenty of hummingbirds, wasps and wind up on the balcony, but I've never seen a bee up here! Oh no! 

Then, a day or two ago, I spotted this...

and I'm back to doing my ecstatic Snoopy Happy Dance each time I see them.

Fingers crossed that the raccoons don't catch their scent and follow it up here!