Canada: Courtesy of COVID-19, I’m farming now. Not just gardening, but small scale agriculture
“Growing tomatoes is the very best way to devote three months of your life to save $2.71”
By Jane Macdougall
The Province
July 24, 2020
Excerpt:
Starting next month, my routine greeting of “Hey, how are you?” will become, “Hey … want some zucchini?” You see, courtesy of COVID-19, I’m farming now. Not just gardening, but small scale agriculture. Four hundred pounds of steer manure bought back in March from the local Thunderbird Track and Field Club fundraiser was probably a little excessive. The garden has achieved epic proportions; an impregnable, jungle-like density. At night, I find myself humming the libretto from The Little Shop of Horrors … you know, the musical where a florist inadvertently raises a voracious flesh eating plant. Yep, this garden of mine is pretty prolific.
Truth be told, I’m more than a little obnoxious about it: “Come feast your eyes on my back 40” is offset with mock-modesty, “Awww, shucks, t’weren’t nothin.’” At dinner the other night, people were comparing the relative merits of fish fertilizers to chemical fertilizers. Someone boasted that they had not just one, but two giant composters; Birkin bags are so pre-pandemic. We were working our way up to weighing the relative merits of International Harvester versus an Allis Chalmers.
