I forget it I’ve reported here about planting my first plants in my apartment, or rather repotting and watering the plants my sister gave me from her garden.

As food and diet have become more important to me for leadership, health, discipline, integrity and, most of all, delicious eating, I’m getting closer and closer to plants from the ground. Last summer’s trip to the farm where most of my produce comes from was a big step.

My sister gave me two small pots with some mint from her garden. Sadly, the mint in one pot died, but a tomato plant started growing. She says that happens a lot because tomato seeds survive the composting from her kitchen scraps. All summer the tomato plant has grown. It’s now about four feet tall. Here’s a picture of it. You’ll notice something missing you’d expect from a tomato plant in mid-August. No tomatoes.

It had flowered but not produced fruit. I learned that tomatoes need insects to pollinate them, which my apartment lacked. I kept watering the plant after the flowers dropped off, figuring I could keep learning from the process. I see this summer as the start of my gardening habit.

It lacked tomatoes, that is, until this morning, when I saw this:

A tomato!

Somehow a tomato started growing. After I read about the need for insects, I had started shaking the flowers each morning and trying to spread the pollen in their absence. Maybe that did it. However it happened, it looks like I’ll get at least one fruit this summer. The other pot’s mint has grown like crazy, which I chop and put in my cereal in the morning, so both pots of plants have worked out.

Next summer I’ll do more.

• ← Want to connect with people that matter? Take Michael Roderick’s “The Connector’s Path”
• Quora Saturday: cheating, ‘Murica, more cheating, wisdom beyond books, and leadership →