{"id":970,"date":"2011-07-22T10:19:03","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T17:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=970"},"modified":"2011-07-23T11:27:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T18:27:37","slug":"the-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=970","title":{"rendered":"The Patient"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps it was the thunderstorm earlier this week that delivered the scorching temperature, now wilting us on the East Coast. Lightning strikes hit so close, a friend ended up in the hospital – and what are the odds? (he’s fine now) The morning after, inspecting the raised bed vegetable garden, I found my glorious heirloom tomato plant almost snapped in two. But wait — \u00a0I said, almost.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I ran inside and rifled through drawers, boxes and bins for tape. \u00a0Carefully, I lifted the leafy stalks, heavy with little tomatoes and flowers. Holding the pieces together with one hand, I wrapped the black tape electrical tape around both stalk and stake with the other. Then I watered it. \u00a024 hours later, there was still no wilt and the little yellow flowers were still intact.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I mean, what do they graft plants with? It’s got to be some kind of tape, right?\u00a0But I wasn’t crazy about the electrical tape and presumed\u00a0my favorite herb and garden center would have tape. Plant band-aids? \u00a0\u00a0I told my tale to the two women at Gilberties<\/a>, and they nodded sympathetically, obviously expecting I’d lost the tomato plant. But no! I exclaimed, it seems to be doing just fine.<\/p>\n

They did not have any special tape but one of them suggested getting surgical tape – the kind that breathes. So I did – and with chopsticks, built a split. See? I fed it and have been watering it extra. Okay, I talk to it too. Whatever, it all seems to have worked.<\/p>\n

This is my favorite plant now — and of course, rich in metaphors for me. It may yet die, but if it makes it, these tomatoes will be the most delicious of all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps it was the thunderstorm earlier this week that delivered the scorching temperature, now wilting us on the East Coast. Lightning strikes hit so close, a friend ended up in the hospital – and what are the odds? (he’s fine now) The morning after, inspecting the raised bed vegetable garden, I found my glorious heirloom … Continue reading The Patient<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[15,20,12],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seasonal-musings","tag-garden","tag-grief","tag-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPzTS-fE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}