The Early Posthumous Work

Urban Farmer, Amiable Crop

94 Urban Farmer, Amiable Crop It’s only natural. The urban farmer first heads to the lumberyard and picks up twelve feet of 1" x 8" and eight feet of 1" x 12", and of course some 1" x 2" for runners so the roof won’t rot. What is the urban farmer doing? He’s building a planter, in which he will grow his own tomatoes. His attitude toward the project is complex, but not very interesting . The dispute with Sartre. The garden hose in myth and metaphor. That sort of thing. It distills to the fact that tomatoes run to $1.29 the pound, and the other fact that everyone on his block is growing them. Clearly, it’s his sort of fad. p Home with his twelve dollars’ worth of lumber, he borrows some power tools and engages a friend in building the planter. The friend nails crudely, but fast. It takes an afternoon. Completed, the planter box is so handsome that the urban farmer briefly considers using it as bookshelves, or a boat. As night settles over the little city, he is sitting in the planter on the roof, smoking. Then he gets out, remembering tobacco mosaic, a plant disease he has read about. Steven Barthelme 95 As any dilettante farmer can tell you, reading about growing things is a mistake. But the urban farmer insists. Days later he staggers out to his planter (staggers up, actually, because it’s on the roof). He is not now thinking of the beautiful blond wood. He is thinking of fusarium wilt, blossom end rot, nematodes, sunscald, leafminers, leaf hoppers, hornworms, and aphid-herding ants. Luckily (as they always say in plant books) he has been excessively cerebral since childhood and knows just what to do in such a situation. Press on regardless. Dirt! he thinks. But first, prepare for the dirt with a layer of rocks on the bottom for drainage. Drainage is very important, as in life. Now, as Freud taught us, there are always problems if you know how to look for them. The urban farmer quickly invents two (suppressing the initial hypochondria; dirty rocks). First, how large should the rocks be? And second, where does one secure a good wheelbarrow load of rocks? Reading in his tomato book reveals that its author thinks carelessly. Size is not specified. Down the block is a driveway with a good number of rocks just lying around. The driveway has been abandoned, and leads to nothing. He drives down to the driveway and parks, gets out with an old pillowcase and looks around. Sees himself, briefly, in a newspaper photograph, up on three hundred and twelve counts of rock theft. Loud, Vulgar, A Neighbor Recalls. A half hour later, on the roof with the rocks, he pours them into his planter, picking out the sticks, slivers of green glass, pop tops, and other assorted garbage. Size no longer matters. He is pressing on regardless. Dirt is obtained in much the same manner. In exactly the same manner, in fact, with a lot of speculation about pH, humus, clay, sand, and microorganism content. What exactly is humus? he wonders. The speculation is blessedly idle. Dirt is dirt, as the saying goes. He mixes in sand borrowed from the landlord, and as a sweetener, a couple of bags of “pasteurized” potting soil. The soil costs four dollars. 96 The Early Posthumous Work Resting, he tries to figure out the difference between filth that will grow twenty-three foot plants (pictured in the text) and filth which needs pasteurizing. Between good and bad filth. This is the sort of question which always arises when he attempts to explore environmental ideology. The question is too much. He contents himself with facts. Horse, rabbit, and sheep manures are hot manures (rich in nitrogen ), cow and hog are cold. Cat manure, readily available, is not covered. The urban farmer has now spent eight days and sixteen dollars and feels ready. He buys three plants and sets them in the planter, burying them up to their chins, as the books instruct. Not to miss any bets, he speaks warmly to his plants, when no one else is around—you never know when talk show trivia is going to pay off. After some early hesitation, the plants begin growing. It is a miracle of course, and he is suitably awed. Just like a power drill...