Oh My....

Last weekend brought us little taste of early spring- it dropped down into the 30's over a few nights. As it happens, tomatos don't especially like cold, and most of our plants turned a little yellow. Our neighbors fared a little worse than ours, which have by now recovered. Theirs turned even yellower, though they looked a little small and sickly to begin with. Our neighbors are older, probably in their seventies, retired, and seem intent on dedicating the remainder of their years to having the greenest lawn on the street. They are excellent landscapers, and seem to spend hours everyday working on their lawn, hedging, bushes and flowerbeds.

They also have a beagle named Crissy.

In the gardening department however, they seem to be a little lacking, for as I mentioned before, their tomatos never seem to do as well as mine (I'm not prideful or anything). So I try and give them some pointers every now and then- "the yellowing leaves was just because of the cold. They're fine." "Make sure you shake the plants around midday to help the flowers pollinate" "You only need to water every other day, or when the top two inches of soil is dry". They always graciously accept the advice (it is usually sought after advice in the first place), and then comment on what a great FARMER I am. Farmer? I've always thought of myself as a gardener. I didn't think I would reach farmer status until I had my own farm and Erin was in charge of it for us. It just made me laugh that she called me a farmer to my face.

What is even funnier is that they are EXTREMELY impressed that I actually go out and research the things I grow and read up on gardening techniques. They never struck me as the academic type, but I never thought looking stuff up in a gardening book or the internet qualified one as academic either. But they just marvel at the intelligence of those young spunky neighbors of theirs that get their lurnin from them books. Funniest of all, which will be difficult to express in writing since the humor was in her tone of voice, when I told my neighbor that you have to help the tomato plants pollinate themselves by flicking their flowers, she replied "Oh my...." I'm sure the last thought in her 75 year old brain was that I was suggesting she aid her plants in having.... ahem... in the propogation of their species, but as she said that in the tone of voice she said it in, it was like I was suggesting something extremely improper. "You want me to help them do WHAT? Oh my..."