(no subject)
Over there is the garden - the garden and the potatoes and corn, which are kinda secondary to the rest of the thing.
Dad never did anything small in the garden. Well, not after we moved out here and he had space. The garden slowly expanded year by year, while everyone else stared in awe and watched it happen. It was a bit like watching a train wreck, especially when he bought the tractor and plow. Lately, I thought that he was trying to relive his childhood and worry about cows showing up.
This started when I was in high school, in the Year of the Tomato. This isn’t something you’ll find on the Asian Zodiac, though it should be. This is what happens when your father goes to get tomato plants and can’t choose. Instead of getting 6 or even 12 of one kind of tomato, he finds that there are a lot of different types. He wants to taste and experiment and make some decisions about what he actually likes. So in the Year of the Tomato, your father buys a half-market pack (6 plants) for every single type of tomato that he’s considering. Then he brings them home and lovingly plants them in the ground. Bemused, you count them and announce to your father that there are over 100 tomato plants and you are reassured by him telling you that some of them will probably die.
This soon turns into the year where you leave tomatoes in brown paper bags on people’s doorsteps, ringing the bell and running away.
The tradition has continued into current time. We’ve had the Year Of … just about every veggie that we plant. Potatoes, Sweet Corn, Zucchini, and, again, Tomatoes. Tomatoes see to be a popular choice for the Year Of tradition. Especially with the volunteers that come up every year without you actually planting them.
I have plans to tell you all about the potatoes later on, because they really deserve their own entry, all by their starchy lonesome.
Dad never did anything small in the garden. Well, not after we moved out here and he had space. The garden slowly expanded year by year, while everyone else stared in awe and watched it happen. It was a bit like watching a train wreck, especially when he bought the tractor and plow. Lately, I thought that he was trying to relive his childhood and worry about cows showing up.
This started when I was in high school, in the Year of the Tomato. This isn’t something you’ll find on the Asian Zodiac, though it should be. This is what happens when your father goes to get tomato plants and can’t choose. Instead of getting 6 or even 12 of one kind of tomato, he finds that there are a lot of different types. He wants to taste and experiment and make some decisions about what he actually likes. So in the Year of the Tomato, your father buys a half-market pack (6 plants) for every single type of tomato that he’s considering. Then he brings them home and lovingly plants them in the ground. Bemused, you count them and announce to your father that there are over 100 tomato plants and you are reassured by him telling you that some of them will probably die.
This soon turns into the year where you leave tomatoes in brown paper bags on people’s doorsteps, ringing the bell and running away.
The tradition has continued into current time. We’ve had the Year Of … just about every veggie that we plant. Potatoes, Sweet Corn, Zucchini, and, again, Tomatoes. Tomatoes see to be a popular choice for the Year Of tradition. Especially with the volunteers that come up every year without you actually planting them.
I have plans to tell you all about the potatoes later on, because they really deserve their own entry, all by their starchy lonesome.