I think my garden is a man. Growing up in a Latin language speaking country I can’t help but associate every word with a feminine or masculine derivation. And that’s ok, over the years I’ve gotten used to making mistakes and answering questions like why do you call your car a “her” and why do you keep calling your baby “him”, are you expecting a boy?

I picked my biggest tomato ever today. I actually took out a ruler and measured it. Almost 6 inches across and as big as my palm. But as I was picking the tomatoes and wondering how they can grow so big, with so little care, I thought… “This garden is like a man, the less attention I pay to it, the better it treats me!”

Now I know that it sounds weird, but I’ve been gone most of the summer and I had to rely on Mother Nature and my lovely neighbors to water it and pick some of it. The weeds are huge and they are really taking over the garden. I forget to tie things up; I don’t know how you are supposed to do things, so I just do as I think its right. My “gardener” friend that puts so much love and care into her garden, grows things from seeds, strategically places my plants around and tells me what goes next to what and advices me on how to tend to them. I don’t always follow her advice and while at the time I feel guilty, my choices don’t turn out too bad.

So as I was admiring my manly garden this morning, it made me smile thinking that it strikes me as a hippy garden with overgrown and unshaved everything, with the tendency to give me better and bigger things year after year and to reward my cold shoulder with plenty of goodies that I feel I don’t always deserve. But on the other hand, I’ve been faithful! I give it love when need it, water it when I’m around and I keep it going. Yes, maybe not a lot of quantity but the quality must be amazing!