The Reaping!!!

This post was to be put up in August of '08. It ties in the fact that I had spent $76 on tomatoes the previous spring. It's been hanging around in the limbo that is my unfinished blog post section. I think it's funny, so read it.


It has begun! The reaping of the tomatoes!!! But not without peril... read on!

My coworker Corinne came up to me one Friday and asked "Hey, how are your tomatoes doing?"
"Fine, little wet" I said.
"Oh that's cool. Seems everyones tomatoes are getting screwed over this year because all the rain has cause a fungus to kill them all. Apparently it was the same one that started the Irish potato famine all those years back. Good to hear yours are doing well! You could sell them as locally grown and make a fortune because there is no competition!"

We chuckled and then went on our way. Later that night when I went home, I noticed that some of the roots on my tomato plants were looking very weak, and I had to dump excess water out of several of the pots.
Fuck. I was having just fine luck up until Corinne jinxed me. Thanks a bunch sweetheart!
So I did what any good, impatient, and pissed off man did: I ignored the problem.
Tim was a little more conservative. "Do you think we should move them in?" he asked.
"NO! They are fine, just keep dumping out the excess water from all this rain".
Apparently Mother Nature was having her period on my tomato plants. She was ruining them!!!
No to worry though, I only lost about 1 of the cherry tomatoes, and 4 (Out of 6) of the roma tomatoes.
Sure am glad I can make that $76 dollars is spent on them stretch out. After 3 weeks of constant rain and retarded determination of dumping out the excess water in the apparently undrainable pots, we had a nice sunny day so I decided to exam more closely the tomatoes.
All of them had almost no roots. I don't know how they were still standing up, but sure enough just like France, they were still around. Well that too harsh for my tomatoes. They never surrendered to anything. Lousy cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Anyway, there were a few roma tomatoes and probably 15 cherry tomatoes. All in all, I walked away with some very bitter, sour, 2.5lbs worth of roma and cherry tomatoes.
Holy fuck did I savor those terrible bites of tomato sauce that I made from the harvest. They tasted like your socks smell after you jog 5 miles. Acrid and milky.
Oh well, I didn't give in when they were being drown daily in rain, I sure as hell ain't giving up when they are "rippend" and "ready to harvest" (those terms used loosely).
I made a sauce and chocked it down. Mother Nature, you see what I do for you? Anyone else would have given up; not me with my stupid tenacity.
Stupid, stubborn tenacity.

Tomatoes. Yum!

Two weeks ago, Tim's colleague and friend at college, Jen had bought a few flats of tomato seedlings. She had a few to many I guess, so she had offered them to Tim and I. Before even consulting with Tim, I said "YES!!" on facebook. Already, in my mind, I had a perfect place for them to grow. Our neighbors downstairs bathroom juts out from the house, and it forms a little balcony that is only accessible via our bedroom window, as well as the bathroom window.

In my head I had pictures of casually going out there every morning and watering my new preciouses and culturing them, feeding them miracle grow, and then when they started to grow huge, ripe, luscious, juicy and succulent tomatoes, I would pluck them in the warm sunlight. Nature itself would sing with harmony and joy, and I would be revered as the most wonderful human, with little birds on my shoulders, and squirrels running around my feet. All this on my rooftop.

Two days later, Tim brought home some baby plants. Six beefsteak and Six Cherry tomato plants. They were neat and I am excited.

Skip forward 5 days. They are still not in the ground, and I worry that they will die. So I aim to head out to do something about this.

Still floating on my hippy-esque trip (there must have been LSD in the water in Reading) about how easy and simple it will be to reap the benefits of nature, I travelled to Home Depot to purchase some supplies.

I had made a mental checklist: Six pots for the beefsteak, six for the cherry, some soil, some fertilizer, oh, some of those wire things to hold the tomatoes in place, and OOH! a nice new trowel.

I grabbed a cart, and strolled over to the soil. Hmm, 1.5 cubic feet of garden soil should do. Ah, well, better make it 2 bags, it's only 3 bucks a bag. Next were the pots. All the information online said to get at least a 10" pot per plant. I'll need 12 of those, and at $5.47 a pop, my tune soon changes.

"Hmm, maybe I can get away with only 6 pots, and then a garden box and fit the little cherry tomatoes in that!" I bought 6 pots, and 2 garden window boxes to fit three cherry tomatoes into each one.

At about this point, a large man came to me and asked if I needed any help. I said that I was planting tomatoes on my rooftop, and I'm just gathering stuff up. He said "You should really go with the topsy turvey tomatoes. Only $10, they grow upside down, so you only have to hang them somewhere with light. They produce lots of tomatoes."

You ignorant slut, if I'd wanted some comical form of wacky houseplant, I'd buy a very full spider plant, you big pile of Jack Sauce. "Oh, thanks, but I already have the seedlings."

"Ok, but you'll need more soil than that".

Listen, you dry dip stick, if I wanted advice from a asshole, I'd go take a shit. Thanks anyway.

"Yeah that's a good idea". - Hey, I can have negative thoughts. I wanted to prove that I was one with nature, Lord Druid of home plant: Earth. This guy is cutting the balls of my vision, and emasculating me by bringing me to reality.

So I follow his advice, and buy 2 more bags of soil. Also I had to do battle with those damn wire cages that hold the tomato plants. What sadistic madman came up with the horrible idea to stack wire cones inside one another? It took me 25 minutes to separate them. Where was that lumbering ogre when I needed him? Gone off to try and rub his junk on the toothless wench that is ringing people out I see. Grand. Thanks for the help.

I finally separate everything, then think to myself "Oh, you'll need some fertilizer" So I picked up some of the Miracle Grow Tomato fertilizer. Then I got a nifty trowel.

So now I am armed with a small spade should that ogre decide to give up on his attempts at boning Ms. Gums and come and help me. I can be the ogre slayer of Home Depot. I'd gain a level (Dungeons and Dragons terms).

I get to the cash register, and an actually friendly young lady took care of me. Not in a condescending way or anything that would irritate me, but actually friendly! It went like this:

"I can help you... oh cool, your gonna grow some tomatoes? You have all the right stuff here for it!" said the perky blond

"Yeah, took me a while with these wire cages. They were all stuck together".

"I know, I had to get a few myself. Who designed those? They should be punished ::Giggle::"

Lady, if I was attracted to females, right now I'd be sporting wood so huge it should belong in a national forest. Because it would be like a redwood. Big and strong. Do you get my analogy?

I paid with debit, and then I saw the price.

$76 fucking dollars.

"Do you know how many cheap whores in Dorchester you could get for $76 dollars?! 32, with $2 left to take the T home!" I wanted to shout, but I like the Home Depot, so I didn't. Plus I didn't want to go to jail for disturbing the peace.

I loaded up my car, then headed on home. By that time it was too late, and my self-esteem had hit the daily limit of low. I just wanted to go home and veg. No pun intended.

The next night, Tim and I set up a little assembly line outside on the driveway. We'd fill up the pots with soil, and then I'd put the tomatoes in place. We'd hoisted them upstairs, through the living room, then into our bedroom. Tim scurried out onto the roof and then clung to the side of the house like he was out for a spacewalk from the NASA shuttle.

"Don't worry hun, you won't fall. You've got 8 feet from the side of the house till the drop". I said

"I KNOW!" he shouted at me. Translation: Don't pester me, I can do this, I'm not weak or afraid.

"Do you want me to go out there and do it?"

"NO, Just hand me the damn pots!" Translation: I'm actually kind of scared out here, but I don't want you to see it, and I don't want you judge me.

"Are you sure?" I said. Translation: I can see through your bullshit and that you are terrified. You are clinging to the far wall like an Ethiopian to a chicken nugget. Your voice is elevated. I just want to get this done.

"Yes I'm sure. Let's just hurry up and get this done". I know you know I'm afraid, but now I have to maintain dignity. Please don't say anything else.

So I hoisted all the plants out to him. He set them up in neat rows, and then I handed him a watering can so he could water them while he was out there.

I decided (once he came in) that I wanted to see how hard it is to get in and out of the window. It is friggin hard. You have to squat over the sill, and then stretch your legs out so that you can touch the roof. Your nuts crunched pretty good and your back gets bent trying to wedge out there. Well, at least that is what it is like for me.

So now, we have a bunch of tomato plants out on our roof, and even though it will be a pain in the ass to go out there twice a day to water these bitches, it'll be worth it because I will have grown my own tomatoes.

At the end of all this, Tim turns to me and says "How much did you spend? You know, Stop and Shop is selling them for, like, a dollar a pound. We could have gotten 76 pounds of tomatoes for all of this.

Yes, this is true, but then we wouldn't have grown our own food. And built character along the way. Plus it also makes the roof a little prettier having plants out there. And now we'll have all the stuff to be able to do it again, cheaper next year.

And shut the hell up jerk, i didn't think of that.