This is the second part of TomatoGate. Go back and read "TomatoGate: An Introduction" if you haven't read that part yet.
The Topsy Turvy Tomatapocolyspe
Last year, I received a Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter as a gift from my sibling who lives in a Very Gated Community. The TTTP The T3P is, in my opinion, a piece of crap which is significantly crappier in person than it appears to be on television. Not only is the planter itself flimsy, but you also have to find a place to hang the damn thing that’s strong enough to support a million pounds (plus or minus) of hypothetical tomatoes.
The only place I had to hang the planter was the W.C. Fields lamp on the patio. If this thing produced like it does in the commercial, there was no way that lamp was going to be strong enough. I decided to go with a more laidback “Flopsy Flurvy Tomato Lounger” approach. Translation: I was going to let the thing sit around on the patio until it figured out what it wanted to do with its life.
I may have overestimated the tomato plant’s inherent desire to go forth and be fruitful. I may have continued to believe long after all signs of life had subsided. (I’m that girlfriend, and thus, I do not date. It's too hard to give up the ghost.) It is quite likely that the residents of the Flopsy Flurvy Tomato Lounger (née Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter) left this world while I was busy trying to find a teaching position in a state which apparently just wants children to run around all free range because everyone knows that that is a reputable teaching method. When I finally got around to checking on my little lycopeney friends, they were gone.
Facebook Status, April 25, 2010 at 5:36 pm:
Throwing Out the Baby with Grandma: When categorizing items as “Trash” or “Not Trash”, The Gummer cannot distinguish between a dead tomato plant and a Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter filled with perfectly good potting soil.
“Mom, why did you throw it away?”
“The tomato plant was dead.”
“The PLANTER wasn’t dead.”
“I had it in a black trash bag in the garage for a week before I threw it away. You should have seen it.”
“I cannot see through a black plastic bag.”
TomatoGate had begun.
In This Part, I Talk About Balls For a While, But It's Really About Gardening
Around that same time, I decided to plant a garden. In this garden, I would grow everything. (To quote Katt Williams: “Everything?” “Everything.”) I am absolutely not in any way exaggerating, in fact, I am probably leaving things out with this list. I planted: big tomatoes, little tomatoes, spring peas, pole beans, yellow squash, zucchini squash, carrots, spinach, mixed greens, cucumber, watermelon, strawberries, and, I think, a pumpkin.
“That’s a lot,” you are probably thinking. You are right. “Well, yeah, but how big is your yard?” Good question. Thank you for that show of support. The yard is big, yes. “Well, do you have a PLOW?” Ah, no. The choice for me is plow free. The plow factor wouldn’t be an issue, anyway. I’ll get to that in a minute. I need to deal with all of these seeds first.
I started the seeds in those little Pop Secret soil pucks and then transferred them to little Styrofoam cups. (Word is making me capitalize “Styrofoam”. I thought we had a more casual relationship than that. Cardboard and I do not have a need for such formalities, Styrofoam. Get over yourself.) I kept the little unproductive pucks, because I am an optimist and I love the underdog. I combined fertile soil with futile soil like a deranged geneticist who was hell-bent on getting something to stick the landing. I transferred the seedlings to breeding trays which were sort-of divided by type until it rained, and my plant farm turned into Freeballin’ Plant Soup. While that may not be an ideal gardening situation for some people, I generally prefer things to fall in more of a freeballin’ construct. (The Gummer is more of a “Balls in a Vice” kind of girl. If we are judged according to our (metaphorical) ball policies, I think most men would prefer my perspective even if is a little slapdash. Ooh, “slapdash” is not a good word for this. Um, loose, unstructured, free. I would say “chaotic”, but that reminds me of how I learned that “free” does not translate to “can be exchanged freely from right to left”. My sincere apologies, Innocent Victim of One of My Less Successful Experiments. I’m sure there were other things in the lab that buffered your trauma.)
I digress…and I am talking about my mother and balls. Delete. Delete. Delete.
Anyway, so I had all these seedlings and potential seedlings that needed to spread out. I asked The Gummer if I could have a little bit of yard to chew up and turn into farmscape. (How is “farmscape” not a word, Word? Add it.) There was a logical little plot next to GAYB (God-Awful Yard Barn). The Gummer begrudgingly said I could use the space between the patio and the fence. Yes, between. Two feet wide and seven feet long with one extra square foot sort of sticking out. I think the yard is a quarter-acre or maybe half an acre. Hell, maybe it’s an acre. I don’t know. It’s bigger than 15 square feet jammed between a 3 ft. high wall of concrete blocks and a fence. That is the sort of crap farmland that people give adopted children.
So, I had all these plants or potential plants, and I was mad that she was limiting my potential. I, like Miley Cyrus, can’t be tamed. That is a problem when you live with someone who can’t stop micromanaging. The Gummer was getting more agitated with all the little Pop Secret carcasses and Styrofoam pods on the patio. But that wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that we were being reminded why I had moved out the minute I turned 18. Jack and I had been in Collinsville long enough for The Gummer to start waxing nostalgic about the glorious days when she had the entire house to herself. I was in a constant subterraneous state of freaked out, because it appeared that I had educated myself into unemployability. I was unemployed but I wasn’t unpacked. Everything was stuck.
Nobody likes a holding pattern. The Gummer and I were on the cusp of apeshit. What was brewing was an absolute, perfect storm of gung go, balls-to-the-wall, officially-diagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder with A Scorching Side-Order of Hyperactivity versus bat shit, Joan Crawford, undiagnosed-but-oh-come-on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Hang on, little tomato. It's going to get ugly.
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