( published in Citadel magazine - October, 1995 )
I have always believed, against much evidence, that I can learn to do anything by reading enough books and pamphlets on the subject. My earlier experiments with photography, interior decoration, ikebana, yoga, nouvelle cuisine and child-rearing yielded such wonderful results, so when my family bought a farmhouse at Panvel, I began to hang out in the garden section of bookstores and in the book section of garden stores.
Before long, I envisioned myself as a weekend Thoreau and going through the seed catalogues, I knew only one thing: I had to have my own vegetables, especially tomatoes, and lots of them! I ordered four varieties of tomatoes to see which would flourish best in the rocky acid that passes for soil on our land. The names inspired confidence: Maiden's Blush, Springset, Terrific and Sugar Lump! I also ordered many seeds from distant nurseries for Munchy Carrots, Luscious Lemons, Succulent Capsicum, Paramount Parsley and more. My seed bill came to an amount that, according to my husband, could have financed planting of coconut trees over several acres in arid Rajasthan.
Soon the desolate farmhouse took on the look of a greenhouse. Big and small pots everywhere, grow-lights, dirt on the floor, mud in the kitchen sink, soil in the doggie bowl, irrigation, impatience, irrigation, prayers and then green poked up at last. The frail sprouts took on real leaves and eventually the entire operation was transferred outdoors.
I soon discovered that you don’t merely put plants and seeds into the ground and water them. First, you till. That is, you run a monster of a machine over the area and it breaks up the soil to a depth of about four inches. Tilling is punishing work – your shoulder bones rattle, your hands cramp and you wonder if you’ve got premature arthritis. Still, you have the wonderful feeling of tearing something up. It is infinitely more satisfying than breaking rocks, which comes next. No matter how many times you rake, you quickly learn that there will be just as many stones to contend with as the first time.
Then I decided I needed a fence. I noticed other farms in the same area, operating flourishing gardens without fences, but well, I needed one. So I got a few fence posts hammered in and strung some small animal wire around. The only reliable defense against garden marauders, even the books advise, was over-planting – one for the rabbit, one for the crow, one for the worm, and one to grow. So naturally, I set about over-planting with a vengeance.
Once, getting out of bed uncommonly early, I saw a great, shambling, unidentified animal eating its way down one of my beet rows as methodically as a speed typist at work. I went berserk. Flinging myself down the stairs, pausing in the yard to collect whatever rocks I could grab, I began to fire missiles at it, screaming unprintables and using language that would have made a goonda blush. The felonious hunk squirmed out through the hole that it had forced in the wire and galloped clumsily off among the distant trees, but not before stopping mid-way in a field to give me a pained look.
Desperate enquiries revealed that a trail of creosote around a garden’s perimeter acts on rabbits and other small animals like a cross raised in the face of the devil. So I splashed that creosote. Generously, like as though my life depended upon it. Never mind that I had never heard of it until then. And when I was told that garlic juice repels pests, I pulverized garlic pods in the blender and sprayed hopefully. Whether garlic and creosote repel pests and other animals, I don’t know, but they certainly have an interesting effect on close friends.
“Organic Farming and Gardening” advised me to recycle domestic garbage and use it as manure. So the tea leaves and egg shells found their way outdoors. “Helpful Hints for the Novice Farmer” persuaded me to spread several bags of chemical fertilizer to supplement the organic nutrients. “Growing, the Natural Way” told me not to kill my plants with toxic chemicals, so I bought several bags of sheep manure and threw that on as well.
I also learned from one or another of my imported books that in order to get rid of slugs and snails, you must put out pans of beer. The slimy little creatures just stagger into the stuff and drown. I put out the beer a couple of times, much to the amusement of the kid, but got only two customers in three days, and those weren’t slugs or snails either.
Still, I’m hooked. Weekend gardening, which started as a secret vice, has now grown into an open addiction. Everything for the new gardener is miraculous, every day an adventure. I must admit I was a total failure with coriander, pumpkin, capsicum and lady-fingers, but I did have some definite successes, especially with tomatoes. Just about every tomato seedling I put in grew into a verdant, fruit-heavy wonder (and a tomato is a fruit, by the way).
But I had more troubles coming ! I had too many tomatoes now, for I had nurtured to full fruition a hundred and two thriving tomato plants, by precise count. Any responsible gardening book will warn you that for a small family, four or five productive tomato plants are enough, but I hadn’t wanted to listen or believe.
Now there were so many tomatoes that we were literally drowning in the stuff. Tomato sauce and stuffed tomatoes, tomato omelettes and tomato surprises, meats and vegetables in tomato gravy became our staple diet. I even forced them as presents upon unwilling friends and relations, servants, neighbors and casual acquaintances.
And then I bought more books and pamphlets and went into canning, again as a novice. I put up whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato purée, tomato-chilli sauce and I soon acquired the capacity to take care of the tomato requirements of a small town like Panvel. Perhaps if I hold on and don’t panic, the Russians will grow tired of American wheat and develop a taste for my tomato chutney.
Umm, excuse me, the tomato sauce is bubbling……
