Darwinian Gardens: Open For Business
It's our second spring as homeowners, and as the first fiddleheads are uncoiling in the planter bed, I'm dreaming of the splendor of what promises to be a tomatoey August.
I've covered the downstairs desk with a plastic bag and my verdant little seedlings are surging upward toward the windows and the blue bulb desk lamp. Peat pots line the windowsills and spill out onto the patio.
Truth be told, I'm an awful, awful gardener who compensates for his lack of skill with sheer numbers--it's a shock-and-awe attack on spring. I'm sort of the Donald Rumsfeld of planting, sending my dutiful troops out on a fool's errand to almost certainly meet a cruel fate. Any tomato plant that survives the summer and produces fruit has done so in spite of me.
Neverthless, nature is persistent. Last year, tomatoes took over the planting beds, much to the amusement of my wife's family. Cousin Dan asked, "So Steve, when are you going to put in the winter wheat"? In mid-April, I began to notice seedlings poking their way through the dirt--volunteers from the previous year.
Without a doubt, these early volunteers are the heartiest of the hardy seeds--able to withstand both my malignant neglect and a Canadian winter.
As I've watched them grow, it occurred to me that maybe I'm just the sort of slacker capable of creating an Ubertomato. If I continue my sadistic, Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest garden year after year, and grow from the previous season's volunteers, maybe I'll have tomatoes hardy enough to grow on the permafrost some day.
Here's the Darwinian Garders 2006 Starting Lineup...
Tomatoes: Nebraska Wedding, Big Black Volunteer, Purple Calabash, Stupice, Black Prince, Black Sea Man, Camp Joy, Moonglow
Herbs: Oregano, Lime Basil, Black Opal Basil, Santo Coriander, Sacred Basil, Genovese Basil, Thyme, Sage
I've covered the downstairs desk with a plastic bag and my verdant little seedlings are surging upward toward the windows and the blue bulb desk lamp. Peat pots line the windowsills and spill out onto the patio.
Truth be told, I'm an awful, awful gardener who compensates for his lack of skill with sheer numbers--it's a shock-and-awe attack on spring. I'm sort of the Donald Rumsfeld of planting, sending my dutiful troops out on a fool's errand to almost certainly meet a cruel fate. Any tomato plant that survives the summer and produces fruit has done so in spite of me.
Neverthless, nature is persistent. Last year, tomatoes took over the planting beds, much to the amusement of my wife's family. Cousin Dan asked, "So Steve, when are you going to put in the winter wheat"? In mid-April, I began to notice seedlings poking their way through the dirt--volunteers from the previous year.
Without a doubt, these early volunteers are the heartiest of the hardy seeds--able to withstand both my malignant neglect and a Canadian winter.
As I've watched them grow, it occurred to me that maybe I'm just the sort of slacker capable of creating an Ubertomato. If I continue my sadistic, Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest garden year after year, and grow from the previous season's volunteers, maybe I'll have tomatoes hardy enough to grow on the permafrost some day.
Here's the Darwinian Garders 2006 Starting Lineup...
Tomatoes: Nebraska Wedding, Big Black Volunteer, Purple Calabash, Stupice, Black Prince, Black Sea Man, Camp Joy, Moonglow
Herbs: Oregano, Lime Basil, Black Opal Basil, Santo Coriander, Sacred Basil, Genovese Basil, Thyme, Sage
