...frustrating and depressing.
Today I saw a bee and I spoke to it. Yes, I know I'm going senile but a bee is a VIP on my balcony. He arrived and sat on the shutter door and I decided to speak to it. "Hey bee," I said, " Could you perhaps visit my barren cucumber plants and my tomatoes?" Perhaps you can wriggle around a bit and get all that pollen into a frenzy and I'll get some damn fruit. Better still, get out there and call your buddies and tell them I'm only two floors up." The bee scratched his wings and buzzed off. He's probably afraid of heights or something.
So, after owning a half acre of fruit trees and vegetables ten years ago-- and growing enough tomatoes to keep Heinz in business-- here I am reduced to an apartment on the second floor trying to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. I have twelve tomato plants and four cucumber vines (and herbs--no problem with those), and they are sitting there sprouting flowers and nothing else. I even joined a balcony gardening forum (how desperate is that?), and discovered some tricks to use to get my plants to produce something for the larder. After all man is naturally a hunter-gatherer. I'm doing a lot of hunting but no gathering at the moment.
Anyway, the guys at balcony forum suggested I try some devious ways to try to get the reluctant little flowers to get with it. Quite erotic their ideas are too---one wonders what those forum guys get up to in their spare time! Hint no. one was to press a vibrator against the tomato flowers to spread the love, so to speak. That sounded unusual and rather daring but it made sense as tomatoes are self pollenating. Problem is, I do not have a vibrator and would get into a lot of trouble explaining one away. Hint no. two sounded even more kinky. Cover the flowering plant with a black bag and shake the shit out of it. This is not good--I could be giving tips to lovers looking for new ways to experiment. Imagine: You are tied up (as my plants are), staked out (yep), and then a black bag is used as an additional SM tool!
One forum member suggested that I use a fine paint brush to aid pollenation of my cucumbers. I hesitated to swan around in front of the neighbours touching a brush to male and female flowers --in case they thought I was a lunatic. I did try it in the dark.
The black bag seemed to help--a bit. I now have twelve tomato plants and three small tomatoes. I have asked my dog to guard them carefully. I have never been so frustrated but I shall carry on making a fool of myself --trying to provide vittals for my family. I read that Brad is going into bee-keeping. Could you send some bees across the water, Brad?"