Things don’t always go to plan(t)

Bloom where you are planted

Storytime:

On the 27 of March 2020, I found myself without a job, with a partner who was classed as “essential”, no more nanny, no more school, no more walks, playdates, lazy mornings ordering coffee or visits with my mom. I felt trapped and lost and scared. To varying degrees, we all did. Oh – and I had a super busy toddler.

But I was one of the very fortunate ones, I know.

I had a little garden, a couple of pets, a partner, who, being “essential” kept on earning his salary. We had no co-morbidities, were generally in good health and lived in a small town in Mpumalanga. As far as pandemic punishment went, I came off lightly. BUT. I had a very busy 3-year-old who could not understand that the park was now closed and his cousins and grannies couldn’t visit.

What I DID have however was time.

And four half drums filled with potting soil and dotted around my patch of lawn. Thankfully my local grocery store somehow decided that vegetable seeds were critical enough to classify as foodstuffs, so I had a limitless supply of basic veggie seeds.

I didn’t stay in the kitchen

I baked my first banana at 11, proofed my first bread dough at 14, baked rusks my whole life long and even did things like make biltong and can peaches. So the food-preserving trend did not grab my attention. Nor did the binging on Netflix really work with a 3-year-old. (There’s just so much Daniel Tiger a mom can watch before you’d rather eat a glass sandwich.)

So, we went outside.

Lockdown was when my gardening skills finally developed Suddenly, I was researching soil acidity and creating my own mulch. I started a compost heap, saved up coffee grounds, teabags and eggshells…As the terrifying virus stats started growing, so did my seedlings.

Before long I had my first rocket, parsley and teeny tiny salad onions that I probably harvested too soon…but, for me, the coveted sun ripened tomatoes remained elusive.

I ended up growing the most beautiful sweet peppers, I had potatoes, butternuts, garlic. Beans, peas, even more rocket, and larger onions. (This time I waited to harvest until the stalks dropped.)
I even had a single mielie and exactly three sunflowers.

But no tomato would grow for me.

The plant was there, all leafy and tall, but the tiny little stunted green beads just never matured. I gave up, and dug up the whole thing, unceremoniously dumbing the useless plant on the newly established compost heap. Good riddance to you!

Finally, the many versions of lockdown ended, the rocket was left to go to seed, the birds and ants feasted on the unharvested butternut. Work started up again and the real world came back. (Whether this was a good thing, I still don’t know.) I could go to my mom, my kid could see his friends, I started running again…straight back into the rat race.

Many months went by, my newly honed gardening skills falling into disuse.

Until one Saturday. The 3-year-old was now a very vocal, and adventurous nearly 5-year-old. I was enjoying a second cup of coffee on the patio with the kid pottering around just out of sight (I could still hear him and even though the swimming pool was securely closed I was also sitting right next to it, so I knew he was safe.) As I sipped, bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t brought out more homemade rusks, the kid runs up with dirty hands and something in his mouth (!!!!!!). Every mom’s nightmare.

As I look on, he swallowed whatever was in his mouth and wiped his hands on his shirt. Panicked (and trying to hide it) I gently enquired what he just ate.

“Oh, a tomato! They live on the compost heap!”

Turns out I had a bumper crop of tomatoes growing right under my nose, being fed by all the store-bought veggie off-cuts tossed over the barrier into the compost heap every few days.

I had two choices – dig up the thriving plant once more, and expect it to grow in the formal raised veggie garden. Or – Leave it to bloom and grow exactly where it was planted (well – tossed).

I left it.

It has been nearly five years since lockdown, and my tomatoes have become seasonally self-seeding, in late autumn they disappear, and then bravely re-emerge again in August, ready for another season of sticking it to me and my ideas of organized vegetable gardening.

Nevertheless, persist!

Whether it is the exact same plant I chucked out, a descendant or a brand new unrelated one that grew from discarded salad leftovers, I will never know. What I do know is that every time I go to harvest a plump, rosy tomato, I think about how you don’t get to pick your journey, or even your outcomes.

But you do get to decide how you respond to what happened and where life ends up planting you.

Top Tip: Go check your own compost heap for tomatoes. You never know, hey.