It was 2012, and I was married to a very tolerant man. He was quite brilliant and was in possession of an encyclopedia that he housed where his ordinary brain should have been. He knew things. All sorts of things that few other people seemed to know. I could ask him questions on a range of subjects, and he always knew the answer:
“Why does the weaver build so many nests?”
“Why are leaves green?”
“Why is a male bird usually so much more colorful than a female?”
“How long does it take tomatoes to grow?”
“What is the name of that bird, rock, flower, or vegetable, and how does it live, grow, and survive?”
The answers were never fake. He knew! Yet he was an incredibly humble person who had no idea of his worth. He had no idea how brilliant he was.
On the other hand, the only brilliant thing I did at that time was to say "yes" when he proposed. We had so much: a successful clothing manufacturing business, a beautiful home, a committed relationship, and radiating support from friends and family. Life was pretty good. Sundowners on the patio overlooking the pool were tasty, and the bank account was in the black.
Then I read a book. A book that shook the very foundation of our existence. I’m prone to flights of fancy that have absolutely nothing to do with reality. I’m prone to taking the status quo and turning it upside down.
I read Dudley Harris’ Hydroponics: "The Complete Guide to Gardening Without Soil."
My feeble mind spiraled into a whirlpool of magic.
You could grow plants in water.
You could grow plants in vertical arrays. You could sink poles into the ground and place 12 growing bags in a spot where only one could grow without a vertical array.
You could grow food on a one-hectare plot that could produce as much as a 100-hectare farm.
You could!
I was… I became…I devolved…
Into an obsessed creature of growth!
"Darling," I said, quite out of the blue, "can we buy a farm?” (Note the "darling" and just how manipulative I was being.)
He was a tolerant man! He bought a digital subscription for me to Farmers’ Weekly.
He dug four keyhole door-garden patches for me with cobblestones between them so that I could experiment.
"Darling, how long will it take for the tomatoes to grow?"
"Sue, it’ll take four weeks for the plants to flower. Tiny yellow flowers will bloom, and they’ll have the aroma of a fresh dawn. It’ll take three months before we can put those tomatoes into a pot."
Really! Those were his answers.
I wanted tomatoes. So he gave me tomatoes.
A massive truck delivered straw (tomatoes grow well in straw).
An equally massive truck delivered black plastic piping. Enough piping to traverse the neighborhood.
A smaller truck delivered hydroponic medicine(feed).
And a smaller truck still delivered seed, plastic growing bags, and a JOJO(water tank).
Then he set about building a farm in the front garden. He built a farm in my garden for me.
I had 400 plants to experiment with.
To see if I wanted to buy a farm.
400 hundred plants that cost a fortune.
400 hundred plants that my "then" husband set out in the front garden. He pierced 400 holes by hand into the artery of black plastic piping. He placed host piping in each carefully pierced hole. He set a feeder on each of the hosts and stuck them in the straw bags that housed the damn tomato plants.
It was an irrigation system par excellence!
And it worked.
Within two months, healthy, vibrantly rosy tomatoes were spouting across the yard.
Life was exciting, and sundowners tasted so much better while we viewed those plumb fruits.
"Darling, can we buy a farm?"
"Susan, can you see that we have 400 plants? Those plants would be worth $100 if we sold them at the market. It’s taken us two months to grow them thus far. Work it out!”
But I couldn't!
I couldn’t work it out.
I was in love with tomatoes.
My husband understood that he had been ousted by tomatoes.
He accused me of loving tomatoes.
He accused me.
Of course, when the spider mite attacked the tomatoes, I called him. I begged him to come back home and help me.
However, by then he was living happily with a normal woman, who wasn’t in love with tomatoes.
And I, of course, was making love to my insanity.
Images are my own
