I was working in the garden yesterday and I got to thinking about the first time I planted tomatoes. I know that any one looking at me (besides God) thought I'd lost my mind because I started laughing. Not a giggle but a big old belly laugh, there wasn't anyone around but me.
About twenty years ago I was home for a weekend and decided that I wanted to plant some tomatoes. Figuring an hour or so to plant them, I could see myself eating those big fat juicy tomatoes instead of the gassed tasteless crap they sell in the stores. Since I didn't know anything about growing even a weed, I called the families master gardener, my step Dad Bruce, for instructions.
With my pen and pad ready to take notes, I dial his number in Michigan I waited for him to pick up, trying to think of the questions I should have written down to ask BEFORE I called. I start to hang up when he picked up the phone. He hated the phone and would try hard to get someone else to take any calls. He's hard of hearing so you have to yell for him to hear you. I shout Hi, how are you? He said "Your Mom isn't home, call back." I shouted into the phone that I called to talk to him about growing some tomatoes.
After a second or two of dead air He said "Well You have to make them a bed." I shout back to him "A BED?" He said "Yes a bed." I asked "What kind of bed?" I shout "OK I'll build a bed," and he tells me how to pick the spot to make the "bed" sunlight, shade etc. How to make it along with the type of dirt and all the fertilizer and minerals that need to be in the dirt. How to test the soil and everything.
As I furiously write down everything I'm starting to think this is a science project, not how to grow tomatoes! He tells me what kind of tomatoes to buy, how deep to plant them, how to tie them up, the feeding and watering schedule and how long it'll take to have a tomato fit to eat.
I yell back everything to him in case I missed something on my five pages of notes, I haven't missed anything I figure it's time to hang up because this is going to take the entire weekend.
He said "Wait, there's more." I'm like NOW what and beginning to regret my idea to have "fresh tomatoes." He said "You need to play country music for them." I'm speechless, but manage to say "OK I can do that." I need to get ahold of Mom cause he has totally lost his mind. Then I vaguely recalled hearing on a garden radio show that plants like music and grow better with it. OK I can see doing that.
I hate myself, but ask how many hours a day do I need to play the radio, "A few hours" he replies. OK now I am really ready to get off the phone, thinking I had all my instructions, start to say thanks and hang up cause daylight is wasting. I need to begin what I though was a one hour tomato planting project which has grown into a week long construction landscaping renovation. No wonder the farmers are broke, it takes forever to plant anything. He says "There is one more thing you have to do." I sigh, and say "OK what is it?"
He says "you have to sing to them while the radio is playing." I quickly agree, I like to sing. Now I can get off the phone with this NUT!
Then he quietly asked" Do you want them to really grow big and fast?" Desperate to get off the phone, ignoring my better judgment, I say 'Yes." He said in the most serious voice I've heard, " Well you'll have to sleep with them." I scream SLEEP with them!" He calmly said "yes and they need a sheet to cover up with."
That's it I loose it! I tell him I think this is too much for me, I'm shouting a million different things into the phone, when he starts laughing!
He's roaring with laughter so hard he drops the phone! He's trying to say He was kidding about the sheet and me sleeping with them.
He said "I couldn't help it, you sound so serious, taking notes, reading them back all the questions, that I HAD to string you a long to see how long it's going to take before you loose it." I sputter a minute not knowing what to say. I better hang up before I say something bad, shaking with rage and shout "GOOD BYE" and hang up the phone.
For years afterwards when I'd talk to him he'd ask if I had any tomatoes, I could tell he was trying not to laugh. It was a long standing joke between us and eventually I saw the humor of it.
He's gone now, but every-time I go to my garden I think about that phone conversation from years ago and can't help but laugh. I've even done it a few times to unsuspecting people that ask me about plants, just to see how far I can get with it, just like he did me.
Oh yea I did plant the tomatoes and have every year since.
Tags: Singing Plants Grow Happy
