Favorite summer meal, Open face tomato sandwich with bacon & fresh mozzarella.
A true masculine chauvinist product of his generation, my FIL never could understand why I invested time in calla lilies instead of the edible delights practical gardening had to offer. It didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t have an adequate location for a vegetable patch. The back yard, too shady, and the front yard was under the fascist rule of the homeowners association. My green thumb… wasn’t. I’ve murdered enough basil, rosemary, and oregano to supply a chain of Italian restaurants for a year. I never succeeded with potted herbs. I just dried them…on the stems. Nonetheless, he felt I should enjoy the labors of vegetable gardening as much as he did.
What he might not have known, or possibly remembered, was I had a garden once. The summer I met his son, I attempted a small “bucket” garden behind my duplex. Half a dozen plants in five gallon buckets. Tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. I had visions of fresh salsa and open faced tomato sandwiches. The plants flourished. The tomato vines were so healthy I draped them over the clothes line to prevent the fruit from rotting.
Things went well, until I started spending more time with the one who was to become the Better Half. In my absence, the birds turned my garden into salad bar and pecking holes in each to tomato and absconding with all the peppers. The plants were healthy but naked. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my houseplants begin dying one by one until the only remaining live botanical was au succulent stuffed in an insufficient amount of potting soil.
In light of the results, I concluded that I was only qualified to nurture one relationship at a time and five gallon buckets were assigned other uses.
Perhaps I was hasty or superstitious, but it can be burdensome to nurture. Need nags and some withstand the drain better than others, not that it isn’t good to be needed… We are simply not allowed to quantify the dosage, and are left to cope with that which is thrust upon us.
