{"id":37523,"date":"2023-08-10T07:53:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T12:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=37523"},"modified":"2023-08-10T12:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T17:28:57","slug":"tomato-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2023\/08\/10\/tomato-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hearty Tomato Harvest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there is one thing that heart surgery has taught me… It is to “stop and smell the roses”.<\/p>\n

I know that may sound cliche but it is 100% accurate.\u00a0 Prior to surgery, I struggled being present to all the wonderful things that life has to offer.\u00a0 So, in this second chance at life, I am committed to slowing down, being more available to those around me, and having fun with new hobbies.\u00a0 One of those hobbies is gardening.\u00a0 I started with roses<\/a>. Now, I’m into vegetables.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Adam<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The reality… I’m a terrible farmer.\u00a0 Three years ago, I began growing tomatoes, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers .\u00a0 Three years ago, I quickly became humbled by Mother Nature.\u00a0 Everything I tried to grow either died or tasted terrible.\u00a0 I had no green thumb.\u00a0 Even with failure after failure, I always enjoyed being outside, hands in the dirt, trying new strategies to grow something, anything. I realized just how bad I was, when Robyn, my wife, got me a garden sign for my birthday. The sign reads, “Grow! Damn it!”<\/p>\n

I love a challenge.\u00a0 I was not going to give up.\u00a0 So, I did what most people do these days… I went to YouTube.<\/p>\n

On YouTube, I learned a ton of new ideas about the dos and don’ts of veggies. I learned about climate zones, the different types of veggies, how to water, when to water, soil amendments, and so on.\u00a0 Some people watch Netflix late at night in bed.\u00a0 I watch the MIgardener<\/a> and The Millenial Gardener<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Husky<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This summer, I decided to simply focus on tomatoes.\u00a0 In May, I planted Celebrity, Bush Goliath, Roma and Husky Cherry tomatoes, which are determinate varieties<\/a>. In addition to prepping the soil with compost and fertilizer, I also increased my watering and decreased the amount of pruning.\u00a0 As you can see in the pictures above, which were taken yesterday, I am starting to actually see some improvement in my garden.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Chopped<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So you know… I love Caprese salad – the fresh tomatoes, the mozzarella, the basil, the extra virgin olive oil, and that splash of balsamic vinegar. Here’s a picture of the first Caprese salad I made for Robyn and Ethan, my son.<\/p>\n

I have a lot more to learn – about gardening, about vegetables, about life.\u00a0 Again… I’m just happy to have that “second chance”, thanks to my surgery.<\/p>\n

Keep on tickin!
\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37539,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37523\/revisions\/37539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}