Here is an update, and also a pretty long rant about people dumping poisons onto the lovely landscapes we all have to share as people after the update. And more!
In the short version:
I replaced the tomato plants! Try, try again. The End. Humanity continues. Or so I hope!*
*Am I able to hope this!?! What a mess we're making. Jay kay. *waves her human flag*
Long version as follows!:
I spent all day Saturday fixing everything. I did other stuff too, not just replacing 7 tomatoes. I replaced 7 tomato plants though. I will try to stay on topic tonight,
(and kind of fail) , but to suffice to say I did other stuff that amused me too. I feel strong and accomplished. My DH certainly helped. We actually worked well together while replacing the tomatoes.
I moved the manured soil out and added some not ever anything added to it soil, in addition to some organic storebought soil for the ground, and prayed to the earth. Hah. Then planted ... & watered & mulched & put on tomato cages.
Okay. So, the plants that were the least effected / had the least amount of stunted/messed up growth seem to actually been straightening out very quickly. (Yay! That is nice to see even if I replaced most of them. That gives me hope for the new tomato plants and that the remaining tomatoes' fruit might exist or maybe not contain too much awful toxic stuff in the fruit itself, knock on the woodiest wood. )
I am fairly confident this is a true observation and not wishful thinking, that whatever it is that was messing them all up is wearing off. One of the plants I marked for removal was looking so good I took it out of the ground and put it in a container.
(leaves were straightening out / it was growing bigger / or the new growth was not making me wince and want to throw it out? / it was flowering and not looking terrible / it improved so drastically I felt like it earned a chance, DH can be the one to eat all those tomatoes - the guilty guinea pig! I won't even tell him but he will just be the one to get all those tomatoes on his salad while I have unsullied tomatoes, justice served. He wouldn't necessarily object even if I reminded him every time I fed him a herbicided tomato that it was an herbicided one, but I won't tell him because eww, how appetizing. This is all 1000% his fault anyway and he wanted to keep it too. So a done deal.)
I laughed and put it in a 7 gallon container with clean potting soil. If she doesn't look more than happy after a week or two in her clean container then I will give her container to something that makes me happier but any way.
We got a cute companion plant for the tomatoes! ^_^
A cinnamon basil. I always wanted one but I was scared I wouldn't like it as much as the green basil and feel as if I made a season long mistake. I was/am probably just being silly in that regard. My MIL picked out the cinnamon basil and I was over the moon actually (aka happy as a clam, hah?
)
I gave this shrub between the tomatoes and the pumpkin/zucchini/gourd patch a deep trim and extended the garden bed with more bricks (it isn't a raised bed, just one with a brick border)
Just so the cinnamon basil could be with the tomatoes but not suffocating them, inaccessible for harvest, or otherwise in the way.
Everything looked so AWESOME after we replaced the wonky plants!!! My DH is the one that pointed it out. As soon as the weirdo misshapen tortured plants were taken out to pasture, it was like the bad feelings were all lifted from the landscape too and taken back into idealism. ^_^
I would even venture to ascertain we had literal "fun" replacing the tomatoes when it was all said and done.
And I must reiterate: the way the damaged tomato plants were already recovering is VERY encouraging. Definitely made me feel a lot less doomed!
(Although I am willing to accept whatever the outcome is. I tried my best! I think I even had an okay attitude throughout most of it, hah. But omg I'm glad that is all over. If things go south again I still have 7 seedlings! Tomatoes or bust I said and tomatoes or bust I meant!)
Goodness golly gosh miss Molly, heavens to Betsy !
I am so looking forward to next year. With the forciest of forces I could ever had. No bleeping poison damage, I don't even mind, knock on wood, if that 13 year swarm of locusts or whatever the bleep it was comes down and eats everything I grow next year -
I swear that would feel better than being poisoned by poison manure stuff that was supposed to help me, not hinder me.
I'd rather feed bugs (that feed birds or lizards or other bugs/etc) that get fried by human-put poisons. At least I wouldn't have some corporation to be mad at and I could just come try to curse the bugs organically with my friends at HG.
I am not quite mad at one thing in particular, I am just mad at the whole sham of a ... (here I go ranting, oops!)
I am mad at the whole direction of my country as far as pesticides, herbicides, and poisons go. This is ridiculous. I go into [big box stores] and see untold gallons of poisons for sale and the directions say to pour them onto the land.
. & my understanding is that we are "regulated" (aka imagine places that aren't regulated? Meep!)
And then the part where every piece of earth is a part of the whole!?
Yeah, I can see why people dream of growing stuff on different planets to get the bleep outta here! :rolleyes:
We are poisoning all the life to death including ourselves.
Because the men who sell the poison
Sell the poison and say it's not really poison to everything
But it's definitely poison to everything.
They don't care. If they say it's poison to only some things, they get $
If they say it's poison to everything like it clearly is, they don't get $ because they can't sell their product. Their product whose result is a collapse of the food chain.
I'm being totally general here/not spearheading one product, I think I was able to let it not effect me so fully, like okay, " "they're" spraying poison everywhere and I can just opt out"
But when stores sell manure (or any other product for gardening) that have pesticides/herbicides/bad juju for living stuff in them for any reason, and ... I see ... people buying it, thinking it will help them - and then it becomes a deep detriment to their ability OR THE ABILITY OF THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM to "grow anything" it feels like something somewhere is very broken.
You know? Even if I had waited for the herbicides to wear off ?
I still didn't want to put them into my soil in the first place...
That herbicides are able to be included in a bag of any substance sold to be put into your ground and labeled as "Ready to Use" is more than ridiculous, or offputting, in my opinion, it's wrong.
Even if that isn't/wasn't my particular problem (though I do believe it is/was - that there was herbicide in the store bought manure I used)
The pictures of the effect of weed and feed on vegetable crops / the effects of all that differently formulated poison junk still allows me to stand behind my rant, even if I wasn't personally affected this year, people are dumping poisons into our world that cripple the ability to grow ... ability for anything to grow for any reason... whether we want it to grow or not, indiscriminate vegetative destruction. I feel like we are dumping weapons of mass destruction on ourselves and the fact that anything ever grew anywhere with this stuff, and the fact that everything ever grew is hand in fact that we ever lived how we ever did.
Our ability to grow food, domesticating crops, and being able to find food that the earth happened to be growing is how we... are able to live. Not to mention how ... uhm... foraging is how all the other animals are able to live also.
This all feels so wrong I feel like I should be picketing somewhere.
I probably should be.
I think I know talking about it makes me feel better about it so thank you for allowing me this venue as opposed to me sitting silently with the horror of the state of things.
I did find a
Ooooh I almost dropped the F bomb, hahah
I did find a bleeping empty bottle of "Round Up" under the garden sink in the garden with the plant in the picture I posted that had probably been used 5 years ago. It can't explain for the damage that was in the plants in the place that had already been a garden for 4 years, so I have to place blame on the manure ultimately.
They owner of that garden absolutely know not to use any of that liquid kill stuff ever again now that there is a veggie garden. (I personally strive toward organic, but I even noticed there is organic stuff that harms bees and/or amphibians which makes me feel strange about the whole realm of stuff you spray on your veggies that has side effects to the whole ecosystem, or any part of it really. Although I have to notice I have something like extreme empathy for all living things / systems / the earth as a whole - and I really do question how my gardening effects the whole picture. I try to be only beneficial... that means I can't fry the bees or frogs with a good conscious! Nor would I want to try to play the ignorance is bliss game.
)
I just had a great thought! I used to be annoyed when the crabgrass and weeds would come from under the fence into my garden. Oh boy! Now I can be thrilled with that happening. It means the plot next door isn't rounding me out to the pasture with poison! One less pet peeve in the world for me to have - for real!
& - thank you both (Lindsay and Apple & possibly someone else also <3)
Who were telling me healthy tomato plants always ooze yellow!?! I mean, that when you harvest a big huge tomato plant and you're covered in yellow stuff it's not necessarily a disease at all (:lol:) - and that tomatoes ooze yellow stuff when they are tomatoes no matter what?
I had no idea in the world and I always had a terrible feeling when I saw all the sap like it was death ooze!!! That would really make sense. It seemed very different! Now that you mention the whole tobacco/tomato family deal - it really WAS something ooze-y and a sap, not a mildew. (At least on the subject of my experiences last year.)
)
If my hands and forearms aren't covered, I didn't have enough garden time. I secretly think it has soul healing powers, that sap! ;P it sounds like you have a good plan! Best of luck to you!
) -- ACTUALLY, I think I mentioned this before and someone said if so, the amount is negligible. 
I TOTALLY enjoyed your post. 
