Case in point: I have four tomato plants, different varieties, placed in different areas of the garden. The yellow pear is going absolutely bananas – it’s a bush. The other three, however, are not doing so well. The early girl is ok, but seems to faint every few days, regardless of where I place it. The (supposedly) fog-loving variety hasn’t grown a bit, and the new sun gold plant seems positively ill.
It’s hard not to take these failures personally. First of all, it seems a judgment on my choice to live in a foggy place. You thought living in California would make it easy to grow us, my plants are saying, But you were sooooo naive. (They say this in a 13 year old girl voice.) It’s also a judgment on my ability to care for living things, especially in light of my heavily Prozac’d and allergy pill’d cat. And finally, it’s a judgment on my youth, my lack of experience. There are things, the plants are saying, That you can’t look up on the internet, little one – some things you’ve just got to try for yourself.
But each plant is at least two dollars! At this point it would be cheaper to just buy the damn tomatoes!
They’re coming, the bushy plant says. The tomatoes are coming, don’t you see all these yellow flowers, and these tiny green fruits? They’re coming. Just wait.