By Jennie

I’m a relative newcomer to gardening. It’s only been over the last year or two that I have been able to plant something without the expectation that it would likely die within the week. I’ve gotten better, through luck and perserverance. What I don’t know still far outweighs what I do know about gardening, but I’m learning.

In the beginning, I confined my gardening to flowering plants and shrubs. But in a burst of can-do-itivism, I decided to try to plant some things that were actually edible. Look at me! Living off the land! Maybe when society breaks down I won’t be the very first person killed and eaten (always my greatest fear).

So far my success has been mixed at best. Something or someone destroyed the basil I planted pretty much right away. On the other hand, the cabbage, after some initial ravishment by unknown beasties, flourished, producing huge leafy monsters that don’t look like cabbage to me, but which I’m assuming are more or less edible. The problem, then, is me. This cabbage has been out in nature, with the cats peeing on it and bugs crawling all over it and dirty rain falling on. Sure, all this and more can and probably does happen to store-bought cabbage (plus, the pesticides!), but I don’t have to see and know about these things when they happen! I know I could never raise chickens and slaughter them, but it turns out I’m even squeamish (albeit, for slightly different reasons) about raising veggies.

I did manage to bring myself to extract a stalk of the green onions I planted, wash it thoroughly, and use it in a salad. This was several weeks ago, and I’m still alive, so that’s good. I may even use another one. At some point.

Which brings me to my Topsy-Turvy, which I am determined will be the solution to all of the tomato problems that I was unaware I had. I actually got this as a gift for my last birthday, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I actually found a tomato plant to put in it (I may not have been looking very hard, having some anxiety over the whole business). It wasn’t too hard to put together, but I had some issues with where to hang it, and ended up hanging it off of our deck, using about a mile of rope (filled with dirt, that thing is heavy) to secure it. Here, finally, would be something I could eat without neurosis – hanging in the air, protected from cat pee and most bugs, my tomatoes would be pristine and, I hoped, delicious.

So far, so good. The instructions mentioned something bad that happens if you…don’t water enough and then water too much? Something like that. So, I’m on guard for that. Should it happen, and I recognize it. I am an intrepid vegetable farmer, and nothing gets by me.

I happened to mention my Topsy-Turvy idly to the clerk at a nursery I really like; I was wondering when tomatoes might actually appear (I’m a California girl and a city girl; there’s really no such thing as “seasons” for fruits and vegetables in my mind, though I wouldn’t expect a January strawberry to be exactly tasty). The clerk’s face fell and she said in a tone somewhere between sorrow and disdain, “Oh, those things. They’re so unnatural.”

Maybe you had to be there. It was the way she said it, like me and my Topsy-Turvy were personally responsible for the Death of Vegetable Gardening As We Know It. Chastened, I did not even ask her what she meant. But I’ve wondered about it ever since. Unnatural? My tomato planter is unnatural? Like Damien-in-The-Omen-unnatural, or more like chicken-McNugget-unnatural? Could my Topsy Turvy be…evil?

Hmm. I may not be able to eat those tomatoes, after all.

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