What's mine is not mine...it's the birds'

Ripening tomatoes - Left is yours, right is mine

Remember that tomato trunk that had broken during a freak wind gust (Full story --> Man Down! - When Disaster Strikes)? The one we stubbornly wanted to save because it had tomatoes? Guess what. We were able to nurture it to health by following our anonymous reader's suggestion of placing it in a container with water until a few roots developed. This little trick worked because tomato plants are capable of growing roots anywhere in the trunk. We also removed a few branches to minimize water requirements and kept it in the shade. After a few days we transplanted it and acclimated it by letting it receive only a few hours of sunlight a day. At this point do not let the plant receive full sunlight (6 hours+). If this happens the leafs will start to wilt and the plant will die.

But here we were with a healthy looking plant that still had green tomatoes. So we waited and waited and just when I had given up hope that they would ever ripen I saw a hint of red at the bottom of two tomatoes. Success! We would finally be able to eat our first tomatoes. Or so we thought.

Today I woke up and did my usual routine of checking and watering the plants. Everything looked good. There was one tomato fully ripened so I made a mental note to pick it in the afternoon. Mistake. I came home at noon and the tomato was missing. WTF! No one had picked it, it had not fallen...something must have taken it. That's when I realized that what's mine is not mine, it belongs to the birds. Sneaky little bird came and took our tomato. Lesson learned. We picked the other ripe tomato and ate it right there and then. It tasted great. Go eat someone else's tomato, crazy bird.