Not that I'm a person who normally goes to garden centers! Not at all. I do not go there on a weekly basis, let alone, every day. Imagine! What would people do at a garden centre, day in day out? Except of course people who work there. They go there every day. That is, if they work full-time and have no weekends off. If they work part-time, they might only go there for three days a week. Or maybe only two. There might even be people who go there one day a week. On Monday for example. Maybe they also have other jobs, such as phlebotomist or herpetologist or being a model. Customers who go to the garden centre everyday, must love plants a lot. Or they might go there to meet others. In the pond section for example. They would hang around near the plastic frogs and garden gnomes to spot others with similar interests. They would start a conversation with "would you like to have a coffee with me and have a good long talk about the big-fish-little-pond effect?" and they would feel they'd come across super intellectually, whereas the others normally don't have a clue what the heck this priggy creep is talking about and run away. Or if they get frustrated, they would trouble other customers by whispering "there's something fishy about you". But if there’d be enough staff working there on a regular basis, they would intervene. Except when there would only be stand-by employees who work only once at the pond section. But that’s quite unlikely.
However, this one time I visited the garden centre, which was very exceptional, something unusual happened.
A sachet of tomato seeds managed to catch my attention and talked itself a way into my shopping trolley. "But I don't have a clue about gardening", I tried. However, the seeds were unrelenting and determined to come with me. "I drowned a plant that was supposed to be immortal", I threatened. "When I was a kid, I used to pluck leafs of bushes, just like that. Worse still, I think plants stink. Yes, plants stink and have ugly branches. All of them! Silly show-offs! Look at me! I'm making the room look prettier. Without me, this room is nothing. Look at me, and how ingeniously I grow. How capable I am of producing new leafs, new flowers. I'm so elegant and winsome. And more than that, I'm indispensable since I make the air cleaner. Anyone who has no plants or is not able to look after plants is dumb. And stupid. And a wuss! That's why I hate plants" I plead. But the seeds stayed where they were and that's how it started.
At home, with feign lack of interest, I placed the seeds (ALL OF THEM) in a flower box, all stuffed together. I told myself this was just an experiment but that I still hated plants. That I didn't care and that I still thought plants were stinking (some psychologists call this self-handicapping). After a while, this is what I got
I was somewhat surprised, and decided to continue this endeavour. "But I still think plants are stupid eager beavers", I mumbled while scooping out each seedling and setting them in their own pots. I ended up with 75 plants. At least one of them should be working, I figured.
However, as they grew, the house was becoming smaller, at least so it seemed. So whoever asked, or didn't ask, got a tomato plant from me. The five lucky plants, that were forced to stay, shivered and feared for their lives. However, because they kept growing, I started to actually like them and started to give them more care. I watered them on a daily basis. I even bought them tomato nutrients (I actually went back to the garden centre but omitted the pond section). I sacrificed some pegs of the curtain rail to make a rope construction that would support the plants that staid inside. Two plants got to play outside, on the balcony.
And bliss, the first tomatoes came not so long ago! And they taste superb! So the moral of this tale; even if you do not have green fingers, no garden and even if you actually don't want it, everybody can grow tomatoes! It's miraculous how they grow out of the lovely yellowish flowers and did I already say that they taste sooooo good?
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