A Different Light – Jonny’s latest hobby chronicled in the 48 Hours/My Word section of Saturday’s Northern Advocate
It has been blowing a gale this week. It’s been causing me angst. I am fearful for my fourteen tomato plants.
I have, over a short period, become obsessed with them. I blame the NZ Gardeners Special Collector’s Edition. It’s the second edition (the only first edition available to buy is on Trade Me for $28!). I was innocently squandering my way around the supermarket, buying things I did not need, when I saw it and bought it, to add to my trolley already full of superfluous crap. It was compelling reading. I was enthralled: here was advice about weird and wonderful home gown-fertilisers, next a passionate description of the hundreds of heirloom varieties, then the geek-like analysis of the science of grafted mutants.
analysis of the science of grafted mutants.
Come Labour weekend when all good tomato freaks plant their prodigies, I was off to the garden centre. I bought Beef Steaks, Black Cherries, Big Rainbows, Weighty Whoppers and Bulls Heart, (with names like those, makes you wonder if you are at a garden centre or in Patrick’s House of Fun!). I also stopped by the supermarket for a can of jellymeat, to trial one of the magazine’s quirkier tips.
Back home in the garden I decided to try the jellymeat fertiliser special. No point doing a half-hearted job – I took it to heart and buried a tin full of puppy food under a “Big Rainbow”. I thought it would be safe from the Sydney Silky terrorists. But no! Even though the white picket fence around my vegie garden is over a metre high and Lola, our neurotic canine pipsqueak is about 15cm tall, the Big Rainbow plant was nothing but a hole in the ground by daybreak. The magazine says pet hair was good to bury under the plants and believe me the thought did cross my mind….
The magazine ranted about the physiological and emotional benefits of growing your own “but once you have eaten a tomato that’s still warm from the sun….yada yada yada”. However I have yet to reap the warm and fuzzies. I’m still gingerly attempting to execute some of the cultivation techniques which require a lot of fine motor coordination skills, something that I don’t have in abundance. Plucking out the laterals or pain staking up the lumbering lanky plants as they grow above their means always requires a gentle steady hand to stop breaking the damn things in two. I’m sure I have heard the rest of my family giggling indoors when I suddenly break into a fit of shouting and swearing after demolishing yet another plant.
I have asked for help which has been circumnavigated by other priorities (my daughters, for example answer me with one drawn out syllable starting in high octave ending in a low growl “DAAaaad”). The real reason for the reluctance is that everyone I’ve asked has understood how pedantic my obsession is with having my tomatoes just so, and they do not want to get involved. Tomato growing is fast becoming a love/hate thing, in which I love to see the fruits of my labour but feel wretched when they come a cropper. We reap what we sow I guess, that is if we’re lucky enough to get there before the dog!
Such is life.
Downloadable pdf below:
| Available Downloads | Type | Size |
|---|---|---|
| My growing need to reap some warm fuzzies | 274 KB |