Gardener’s Dream

By Marilou Suszko

Like a lot of people I cross paths with, I have a cloudy romantic vision of becominga farmer. Here's mine:

It's just another day on the farm. I rise early, slip on my well worn, soft overalls that flatter my size 8 figure. I walk out on my back porch with my first cup of coffee in hand. A gentle breeze blows across my face and my lush field of heirloom tomato plants, all heavy with fruit. The sun is just coming up and I feel it gently warming my skin. By noon, the temperature spikes at a perfect 78 degrees and I'm thick into harvesting perfect smooth, bright tomatoes for the upcoming farmers market. I will sell them at a premium price to a legion of 'mater fans who I know will be waiting for me in throngs as I pull into the market. I will invest my profits in a mutual fund and then take a cruise this winter with the excess money I'm not sure what to do with.

Doesn't this sound lovely? Here's the real story:

It's just another day on the farm. I rise early and slip into the dirty jeans I've worn for three days straight. I've just noticed the zipper is broke. Too bad. It's harvest season and I really don't have time to do laundry or mend anything. I down my first up of coffee and head into the fields. It's August and already before the sun comes up, it's in the upper 70s, no breeze. I plan on working fast, but the mud from two days of sporadic rain showers might slow me down. Oh, yeah. There are plenty of bugs this time of year. As they buzz in and out of my nostrils, ears and mouth, I'm learning that they are an acquired taste. The beautiful tomatoes I had a week ago have now cracked and swelled with recent rain and blistering heat, so they have to come off the vine TODAY. Because they are heirlooms, something that everyone chases after these days, they are not disease and crack resistant. So now I have to spend a lot of time at market educating my customers that beauty is only skin deep when it comes to heirlooms. You have to promote and market heirlooms to win customers. This year, I will invest my profits in building a grow tunnel so that I can begin my tomato plant earlier next year and hopefully, harvest earlier and be the first at market to offer tomatoes. With the excess money...oh, yeah. Never mind. There is no excess money.

The bottom line here is that the farmers I meet who hang in there year after year, weathering the constant variables of farming (too much rain, not enough, bugs, pests, heat, cold, frost) have a passion that comes deep within, much further than just thinking about how wonderful and personally fulfilling it would be to farm.

I'm looking at my hands right now and they look like farmer's hands. My fingertips have that ground in dirt that comes off with time and there is dirt under my week old manicure (only the third I've had in my life and a complete waste of money if you garden). By December, my hands will be smooth and clean and my nails a little longer. That's the difference between a gardener and a farmer. One find pleasure in working the earth, the other regards it as a passion.