I’ve never been able to grow anything much more than ugly toe-nails and a bad hair-style. Oh yes, and once a pathetic apology for a moustache. Besides that, I’ve been fairly inactive in the Growing Department.
You should therefore excuse my apparent excitement at the ripening of the larger tomatoes. I didn’t grow them, mind: Clayton is the grower and I have been assistant waterer over the past month. I like to think of myself as the Aquagent Extraordinaire.
But what about this XII stuff? Well, we agricultural farmers cultivate the soil simply because it is there: it is nothing personal, like someone raising little children and giving them each a name. I have simply named the tomatoes numerically, so to speak, and the name of the one twelfth in the row is XII. Actually XII is an abbreviation for Do-Decimus.
To-day Do-Decimus has become the first “outside” tomato to start maturing from a green dunce to a bright red fruitful personage. He is of the genus Tomatoyis Biggus, and has three similar sized siblings, two smaller ones and a real tiny little sister. Not that I’m trying to personify these plants, you understand. That would be silly.
At the same time in the greenhouse, I have noted that Inmate 2014-128 in Mamertino Carcere (the old Roman prison) has started to develop a distinct colour tone as well. I snapped a picture of him while the guards weren’t looking:
