Thursday, January 28, 2010

'Oh it is just too sunny to grow tomatoes here love'

This post might be a little bit ranty but for the benefit of those overseas in he cold Northern Hemisphere I included an old, gratuitously lush picture of tomatoes. Mine do not look like that now, they are wilted, brown and kind of crisp. To the uninitiated it looks like they have been barbecued by the hotter than hot Australian sun. To anyone with any knowlege, they are sick, dying due to a wilt, from the soil, NOT FROM THE SUN!

Now I had inspectors come visit this morning, to see the damage incurred from a water leak coming from the apartment above. It has caused mold to grow in our apartment and it needs to be fixed. Well aparently these 3 men thought I was about 17 years old, and thus spoke to be in the most condescending way. Not only am I a few months shy of 30, but I take offence, at any age, to being treated in an inferior way. They had a letter from my landlord father telling them to inform me of the problems and planned solutions just as they would him, but they seemed to deem it all beyond my head. Then they wandered out to the balcony garden and continued to patronise me in the most awful way. They did not ask me if I had covered any drainage holes with pots, they just assumed that I had because silly little girls with gardens do that sort of thing. No apologies when they realised that of course I hadn't done anything of the sort, that I was well aware that I had to sweep up the excess dirt lest it clog the drain, that it was scheduled as a weekend chore. And when they did talk directly with me they were supercilious and just plain rude.


Then, and this was the final straw, they dared to tell me about my gardening skills. A lush balcony full of greenery, complete with greens that wilt at the slightest hint of sun was set before them. And my tomatoes, the last of which still need to be pulled but with all my spare time taken up on thesis work they haven't quite managed to be ousted yet. Well these 3 men all had views on those. It was the sun, the aussie sun that was killing them. Never mind the lush green foliage at the top of each plant, the mostly unblemished tomatoes still ripening on the mostly defoliated branches below. Yes it was the sun, plain and simple. When I informed them that in no uncertain terms that the wilt was caused by a disease they told me I was wrong. I repeated that I had a perfectly good yield last year and it was only with the entrance of a disease that I could not erradicate that the wilt occured, they thought I was still wrong. One even dared say 'What are you some kind of botanist?'. To that I just smiled and realised there was no point in arguing. These guys would think what they liked, my views wouldn't change their minds, after all I was just a young girl. With that they left. Still don't know when the damage will be fixed or what they intend to do with it, because a young woman like me apparently doesn't need to trouble herself with such issues! I half expected them to smack me lightly on the bottom and send me to the kitchen to bake them a pie!!!


Bah. Sorry for the rant folks but really, it is 2010, who still treats women that way? I may call myself totally inept balcony gardener but I don't think I am that useless. I'd like to see them write a 100 000 word thesis integrating autobiographical studies with history, teach history to university students for less than $10 an hour, keep a balcony garden thriving and blog about it. And now for those who still are reading this, here is more tomato porn, which proves, without a doubt, that I can grow tomatoes on my balcony :)

12 comments:

Funkbunny said...

Grrr! How annoying. And I imagine that all of those men were expert gardeners, producing kilos of produce with their superior skills....

Oh, and the ideal temperature for tomatoes is between 25F and 35F, so I'd say Melboutne is pretty much ideal, apart from a few days here and there....

Dan said...

I bet those workers can't spell thesis :-)

Anonymous said...

Oh Prue~~ I sooo understand what you're saying. I call it HUBRIS. And I say a bunch more things that shouldn't be in print. But passive aggressive soul that I am, try my darnedest to be polite, even when I KNOW I'm right. The worst is when someone insults my gardening abilities because the One area that I have more than a smattering of knowledge is gardening.

Kudos to you for keeping your wits about you. Ditto what Dan said.

Sorry about your tomatoes. I hope the damage is fixed soon. And even more, that the follow-up callers will use their manners.

Fern @ Life on the Balcony said...

Uhm, do these gardening geniuses realize that tomatoes come from Latin America? Where it is sunny? All the time?

What JERKS!

Lisa said...

Dicks. DICKS!!!!!!! What a bunch of loser old men dicks!!!

sev said...

oooh , i wouldnt have been so polite ! of course you can grow tomatoes :-) idiot men .

Jamie said...

Good rant, Prue. You should have gone postal on them, but a good blog rant was definitely justified!

Alexa said...

Oh come now, how can YOU possibly know ANYTHING about gardens when you're obviously a city slicker. All those lush, gorgeous plants must have happened by accident.

/facepalm

I'm impressed you didn't go postal on them.

PJ said...

Ahhh these comments are why I love you all in the blogworld. You make me realise I am not crazy after all. :) Plus I got the biggest laugh from some of the comments. Love it.

Yesterday must have been the day for annoying people with useless advice. Went to a new doctor who immediately told me to lose 10.5 kilos (actually true, but on the first consultation about a completely unrelated matter???) When I asked her just how she expected me to do that and did she have nay advice she told me to reconsider my snacks. What snacks? I've never been a snacker! hehe.

Then she informed me that I really should start thinking about my fertility, and that at age 29 I really should think about WHEN I wanted babies because that clock was ticking. I thought the word was IF not WHEN, but anyyyyyyyyywaayyyyyyy. She never even asked if I had a steady relationship with a boy to complete the necessary other side, or for the record even if I liked boys! Not the worlds greatest medical practitioner. Suffice to say, never going back to that doctor.

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

The fact that those guys left your apartment alive, with no cuts or bruises, is proof positive you're a better woman than me. :D

Alexa said...

Oh man I feel for you about the doctor. I went to a bloke because I was falling asleep at my desk after lunch. He refused to let me have a blood sugar test or refer me to a dietitian because they don't know what they're talking about anyway. All I needed to do was go on the CSIRO diet that he was on because it was just SO EASY to completely give up carbs. Oh and when he made me cry with frustration, he didn't even offer me a tissue. Completely friendly but completely arrogant blokey bloke that I never went back to.

Lisa said...

The vast majority of doctors are idiots. Why? Because across race, gender and socio-economic circumstances, you find one truth: most people are idiots