Life’s a Garden, Dig It!
Stories about growing food and growing as a person.
Tomatoes and I have a good relationship that is only getting sweeter with time.
A few years back, while working as at a hotel in rural Southwest China a small bag of tomatoes changed my life. I remember Lao Yang, a lifetime storyteller and semi-retired farmer, walking through the large wooden courtyard doors bearing a plastic bag. He wore a wide grin on his leathery and bespectacled face. His mouth shone from all the exposed gold teeth that spotted his grill.
In Lao Yang’s hands, was a bag of ripe freshly picked cherry tomatoes. He shoved the bag at me and happily exclaiming in his high pitched and hoarse smokers voice “Duo le! Duo le!” or “So many! Ooh so many!”
I picked one of the many, many round little sweet candies from the bag and and plopped one in my mouth. The skin snapped open gushing force a quick burst of candy juice.
These cherry tomatoes were plucked from the earth no more than 100 meters from where we were standing. But the seeds came from a Home Depot in Florida where I bought them before my departure to China a year earlier. I had given the seeds to Lao Yang as a gift. A token souvenir from the U.S.A.
Over six years and two growing attempts later, I have yet to successfully grow a batch of tomatoes as sweet as the one’s that came from Lao Yang’s Yunnan garden.
Flash forward to present day Chinatown in Downtown Oakland, California on M.L.K. Jr. Way. The industrial town across the bay from “The City” right near I-880. The home of MC Hammer and Jon Madden’s career with the Raiders. The whistletips blowing in the breeze as Bubb Rubb and Lil’ Sis drive by.
I live on leased property with limited sun and space. The front of the house is covered in concrete and gets over 10 hours of direct sunlight in the summer.
I’m foolish and for that reason I understand that planting something is no guarantee of a bountiful harvest. This is risky business. There are many factors and forces that will wither a plant to near death. These near death experiences from Mother Nature is what makes a skilled farmer.
To kick off the beginning of the planting season, I picked up a hand full of saplings from the local Friday Farmer’s market on Broadway and 9th street.
The sweet one hundreds are little tomatoes which are easy to grow and are similar to the seeds I gave Lao Yang.
In nature, you have to do what you must in order to survive. For me, in the concrete jungle of Oakland, that meant going across the street and collecting a bag full of compost from the goat farm that currently occupies a vacant under-managed lot behind a townhouse complex.
Growing healthy plants requires a lot of nitrogen and carbon, from decayed leaves, branches, and yes manure. Combined with organic fertilizers, and worms, the plant may have a fighting chance of staying fit enough to withstand an invasion from disease and pest.
At the beginning, the plant did extremely well in the new soil. From Youtube, I learned to trim the suckers in the armpits of the trunk in order to not drain too many nutrients and prioritize the already maturing fruits.
It worked like a charm.
That is until the leaves started turning yellow after a month. A telltale sign of insufficient magnesium.
A simple remedy is to combine epsom salt with water and spray the leaves with the mixture. To prevent this predictable predicament, dump a cup of salt directly into the soil before planting the root ball. Either way my little tomato plant needed a heavy dosage.
I went a step further and performed surgery on the limbs that were beyond repair, trimming off most of the excess leaves and branches. The only thing left of the tomato plant was the spiraling stem of ripening fruits.
One month later, I finally saw it. While dragging the heavy and unwieldy green hose around the house, the first ripe red tomato appeared. It was shining like Rudolph’s red nose in an other wise bland kermit the frog green canopy. Instead of eating the tomato then and there, I decided to delay the satisfaction. I reasoned with myself to wait till I get back home from my daily errands, so as to truly savor the moment.
After an exhausting roundtrip battle biking in San Francisco traffic, I came back home only to find the prized first tomato nowhere to be found. Only an empty stem tip remained. For a moment, I felt a towering loss of faith in humanity. The only good thing in a concrete jungle. Gone. Stolen. By a neighborhood schmiegel of some type.
I slumped up the stairs, and shared the devastating news to my sister. Just when we thought Oakland was safe. Sheepishly, she explained that while walking the dog she had prodded the little tomato causing the little tomato to accidentally fall to the ground. The resident bulldog, Vito The Dogfather quickly scooped up the treat with his big fat head. Unfortunately, he has been addicted to the sweet tomato treats ever since.
Consoled by the new update and tragic yet comedic fate of the tomato, life carried on. Over the next few weeks, the tree continued to blossom and grow more and more, up and out. Hanging branches stocked full of bright red cherry tomatoes.
I used the tomatoes for breakfast in omelettes, lunch in salads, dinner in pastas and tortas, and even in smoothies for that light savory touch. I estimate the tree produced at least $50 worth of produce at Whole Foods prices. Container to table, sourcing only the finest in local goat manure.
One Thursday morning I was outside inspecting the status of the various container plants. It was recycling day. The house’s 50 gallon recycling bin sat on the street, overflowing with plastic and aluminum money.
A freelance recycler shuffled over with his shopping cart with his eyes on the prize. I had seen this recycler before on the block while working over an entire dumpster full of plastic and aluminum. Today he was covered in a rain cape and thick blue plastic gloves. I wondered how his day was going.
I looked down at the tomato pinched between my thumb and index finger, and held it in his direction, motioning for him to take it.
“You want a tomato?” I asked as he continued to walk across the street and towards the recycling bin.
He nodded his head and exclaimed “Yeah!”
He ate the tomato and a broad leathery smile, not unlike that of Lao Yangs flashed across his face.
“That was good!” the recycler said with a deep satisfaction in his voice.
“Yeah they are real sweet.” I replied. Out of neighborly kindness I asked “By the way, what’s your name?”
“My name is Anthony.” He responded in a quick but friendly voice as he opened the lid to the bin and started analyzing the contents.
“Hey that’s my name too!” I erupted as a belly laugh came surging upwards.
That connection was everything. Trust formed between two Anthonys. A sweet little cherry tomato telling the same story throughout time as nature does her thing.
Life is a lot like a garden. We are all in the same dirt together trying to make our way up. Sometimes a little helping hand in the form of a cherry tomato is needed to bridge the gap. Other times it’s a feeler from a squash plant.
