I went to lunch with a (retired archeologist) friend last week and he insisted that I come by his house's desert garden to grab some volunteer tomato plants. His wife (an author) stopped work long enough to make sure that I had two good ones and that they were properly packaged for transplant in the pretty serious arid heat. I ran them across town and stuck them in a big pot where I've had a basil plant established since spring.
These were tomatoes that volunteered from seeds in their sink's grey water that they used to water their desert garden beds, so the plants are likely to be pretty tough by nature. And to handle heat and aridity well.
They actually seem to be doing okay: they seem like they're establishing and they are growing. I'm really happy about it, because I hate trying to transplant things in weather that will kill them. Looks like this might have been okay.
Anyhow, even though we all know that basil and tomatoes are "full sun" plants, I've learned in the 23 years since we had this house built that doesn't necessarily mean full sun on our high desert lot: I've had both basil and tomatoes (which seem to thrive under very similar conditions, don't they?) shrivel in our full sun, but I've figured out the basil does okay in our side yard which gets early afternoon sun only. I'm thinking the tomatoes will as well. I think I mentioned up-thread that our house seems to be situated in the prime life zone of the accursed sphinx moth, a giant source of tomato horn worms in these parts. When I was working I'd go away in the dark of morning to my office in a city 60 miles away and then return in the evening to find my tomato plants had been utterly destroyed during the day by horn worms. So, I quit trying - for years. These transplants from last week are my first tomato try probably since '05 . . . and, well, I'm hopeful. And at least partly because the sphinx moth season is earlier in the spring - we still have some, but not the crazy numbers we had in May. Plus, I'm retired now so I can go out and check on the plants during the day - and terminate any horn worms I find with extreme prejudice.
