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Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:22 am
Now this certainly wasn't something that one would find in any normal garden, was what Hafwen thought as ceruleans stared long and hard at the ovoid-shaped objects the potted plants she had just happened to chance upon currently bore. Flowers? Nah, wrong shape. More likely to be fruits really.
With a puzzled expression crossing her face, she tentatively reached out with one hand to lightly prod said curious object. Felt real enough to her compared to something that was made entirely out of plastic alright, which was fine and dandy except that she still couldn't figure out why it was either purple or white. Just what was it supposed to be anyway?
Reaching into her bag for her digital camera, she switched it on then proceeded to attempt focusing on the objects next. Maybe if she took a picture of these and posted them on her blog, someone might recognize them and be able to tell her what they were. Curious fruits these were indeedy. And she hadn't even gotten started on those albino strawberries on another plant not too far from these.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:15 am
The visit to his father’s house had been something of an impromptu visit. Although his dad lived in Destiny City, Marlin had visited the weekend before and hadn’t had any plans to stop by again so soon. Lisa, however had called him earlier on in the day as she’d run out of Vitax and Marlin had agreed to stop by the gardening place near the shop and see if he could pick up some of the organic liquid strawberry feed for his stepmother. A visit to his father’s house wasn’t complete without some time spent in the garden and Marlin had mixed up a batch of the Vitax for the pineberries, and then gone to fetch the small hand cultivator that his stepmother used to help grub up the perennial weeds. It was a warm enough day and he wasn’t going to be long, so Marlin had figured that it would be okay to leave the plants uncovered for the length of time it would take to find and bring the cultivator. He came back to find a blue-haired girl in the process of taking photos of some of the plants. “Hello there” his voice was friendly, if a little puzzled. Lisa hadn’t mentioned having guests round when he’d spoken to her earlier.
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Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2013 2:57 am
The last time Hafwen bothered to check or pay attention to anything related to the law, she was pretty sure that trespassing in someone's garden wasn't something that was punishable by the death penalty or something along that line. Yet that didn't mean that what she was doing was likely to be condoned now that she had been caught red-handed in another person's garden on top of taking a couple of pictures of the interesting objects she had incidentally come across.
Startled by the male's voice that alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone, she hastily took a step back, ceruleans focused on the green-eyed male as a flustered look appeared on her face. "I... I can explain. I wasn't trying to steal anything I swear. I'll even delete the pictures in my camera so please don't destroy it or call the police!" It probably wasn't something that warranted the attention of the authorities to begin with but one really could never know the irrationalities that angry people had a tendency of lapsing into and Hafwen would really rather not take her chances with something like this.
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Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2013 3:49 pm
The girl’s reaction to his appearance had Marlin revising his initial assumption. Even if she hadn’t admitted to trespassing, her flustered words put paid to the idea that she was an unknown guest that his stepmother had forgotten to tell him about. “It’s okay I’m not upset” he told her. Unless the girl was a gardening enthusiast there was nothing out in the garden to steal, she would have had to go into the house to find anything of value and he’d have probably bumped into her on his way back from fetching the cultivator. “What were you taking pictures off?” He left the and why unsaid – he didn't want to fluster the girl any more than she already was.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:19 am
The fact that Marlin was not in any way visibly upset as reaffirmed by his calm disposition in addition to his reaction to her earlier outburst calmed Hafwen's frayed nerves effectively, with the younger female taking a brief moment to switch off her camera before blinking slowly to regain her composure.
He was probably going to laugh at her ignorance. She was so sure of it though she supposed the price of humiliation was a small price to pay in return for not having her camera confiscated or the authorities called on her for trespassing someone's garden. "These." With her camera in one hand, she lifted the other to point at the bunch of purple and white ovoid shaped objects hanging from the plant that was nearest to her. "What are these supposed to be really? I've never seen them before and I thought at first glance that they are perhaps fake plastic fruits similar to those that one might find at the stores."
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Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:29 am
“Ah?” Marlin smiled as he glanced in the direction of the pointing hand. “Oh those are tomatoes” his voice was amused. “The dark ones are called Black Russian” and they’ll be almost black once they’re properly ripe. The others are called Cream Sausage.” He set the cultivator down. “I know it’s early for tomatoes, but we’re trying an experiment out with these lot.” He’d help Lisa dig a large hole under the spot where they’d eventually decided on putting the tomatoes so that they could bury fresh horse manure fetched from the stables. They’d topped the whole thing with fresh compost and planted the tomatoes under plastic to put a barrier between the outside. So far it seemed to be working out okay with the plants much further along than they should be. It was a shame the same could not be said of the pineberries.
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Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:34 am
"T-tomatoes?"
Was the guy serious or was he trying to pull her leg? Tomatoes? Really? Hafwen blinked a few times, her mouth opening and closing a few times like a goldfish as she took another step closer to the queer looking fruits to peer at them before staring incredulously at Marlin as if he had just sprouted another head between his shoulders. "You mean like the red ones that they usually carry at the supermarket?"
Nope. He certainly didn't look like he was joking back there. Sliding her gaze back to the plants in question, she tilted her head to the side, not at all comprehending the set-up before her though she was not in any way adverse to having him elaborate further on what he meant by that. "An... experiment you say?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 5:02 am
It was tempting, but Marlin managed to resist the urge to laugh at the girl’s goldfish impression. “Well I prefer these over the supermarket ones” he said at last. “They’re more fun.” He found them tastier too – although that could just be him being biased – he thought that red tomatoes were pretty boring after all. At the girl’s question he nodded, happy to elaborate on the experiment that both Lisa and himself were working on. “Yes as I said, it’s actually pretty early to be planting tomatoes, my stepmother and I” well more him than his stepmother “Have dug a trench under these ones to which we added fresh horse manure at the time. Then we topped it off with compost and planted the tomatoes in it. The horse manure was steaming enough to act almost like a hot box and we added plastic topside” he gestured to said plastic “To keep the heat in.” Maybe he'd rambled on a little more than he should – not everyone appreciated being subjected to garden-speak.
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 6:21 am
"A real life example of the saying what you reap is what you sow huh? Is there enough to go around the entire family?" It was a really neat idea all in all. One that Hafwen couldn't find herself disputing with as the image of a self sufficient gardener who needn't rely on anyone else but his own fresh produce for his sustenance almost immediately came to her mind at Marlin's words. A daunting task no less but still interesting to see how far a gardening enthusiast such as the male before her could go in this current day and age.
"Hmm... so that means that you'll be able to plant them all year round and in doing so, increase the harvest perhaps?" She proposed tentatively, her proposition accompanied by a smile on her face as she glanced the older male's way. His rambling wasn't boring her out of her mind really. It was an example of one thinking out of the box and Hafwen always enjoyed listening to the ideas that others had so long as they were willing to indulge her like this. Besides, it really wasn't every day that one per chance came across tomatoes with these colours.
"I have to admit that I know nuts about gardening but it seems like it's working." She added, nodding slowly to herself a few times as she gave the set up a closer look this time round to better appreciate what he had just shared with her. "Does it taste any different from, you know, the usual one?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 2:39 am
“We’ve never had any problems” Marlin admitted. “Though I’ll be growing a few out on the balcony at home as usual” he was referring to the flat above the costume shop located further into the city. “It’s a bit too cold for me to start them up at the moment though.” He’d probably start planting the seeds at the end of next month. “And no, we won’t be able to have tomatoes all year round doing this” he gestured to the tomatoes as he answered Hafwen’s question “But it looks like we’ll certainly get a longer run than usual. And I find they taste better than the reds though the flavours vary – the whites are much milder than the other colours, but sweet with it, whereas dark tomatoes like the blacks are really really rich in flavour. Greens can be sweet too, but tend to have a hint of spiciness. My favourites are cherries though.”
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:13 am
"Cherries? You have those too? Why those?" Peering at each of the plants in turn to see if she could identify the ones that had been mentioned, Hafwen decided to give up after awhile upon realizing that it was merely an exercise in futility. She just wasn't good at this plant business with her short attention span since everything just looked either green or brown to her, with the occasional other colours depending on the flowers or fruits they bore.
"I see. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on some of them one of these days so as to taste them for myself." She nodded a few times before glancing back at Marlin again, a small idea starting to form at the back of her mind as she posed a very small yet important question that might sway her towards the notion of giving this a shot or abandoning the idea outright entirely without even starting. "Are they like, hard to grow or something?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 7:23 am
“Cherry tomatoes” he said in clarification, it suddenly occurring to Marlin that the other might have misunderstood him. “I tend to just call them cherries though” he admitted, adding “I grow them because they’re my favourites.” He grinned “I’m planning to grow a few plants on the balcony back home at the flat this year.” He’d already picked the varieties too – black cherry, ghost cherry and that new green doctors frosted variety that he’d stumbled across. “By the way I’m Marlin, Marlin Joanson” it belatedly occurred to Marlin that he should probably introduce himself given the length of time they’d already been speaking.
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 4:09 am
"Oh right. That will make sense. What was I thinking back there?" Hafwen smiled at Marlin's clarification, nodding a few times to herself as she tried to put together what little she had gleaned about growing tomatoes from the conversation that they were having thus far. "That will be like some time within the next 2 months or so when the weather warms up a little. Right?" He did say that he was trying out something with the fresh horse manure set up so that he could plant them earlier or something to that effect.
Oh jeez. Where were her manners really? Quickly wiping her hands on the front of her pants, she offered one of it to him as she gave him her name in turn. "Hafwen. Hafwen Goodall. I really appreciate you indulging my curiosity here. Am I um... keeping you from doing something though?" It was what she had been taught at Crystal Academy after all. A proper handshake as one gave her name to a total stranger. Well, not quite a stranger now since he did just give his name but it still applied after all.
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 10:40 pm
“Yep” Marlin nodded. “Maybe not the full two months as I’m growing them in pots and the little balcony that I’m going to stick them on is relatively sheltered, but they won’t have the benefit of the horse manure like these ones here do.” He shook Hafwen’s offered hand “And nice to meet you Hafwen.” At her question of whether she’d been keeping him Marlin nodded “A little,” explaining “I can’t leave the tomatoes uncovered for too long and I’ve got to weed and feed the pineberries. I’ve enjoyed talking with you though” Hafwen hadn’t seemed to mind listening to him talk on about methods of growing tomatoes. A thought occurred to him. “By the way if you’re ever curious about trying some of these tomatoes, then I can let you have some if you stop by Fancy A Change – it’s a costume shop on the inner side of the city, about a 10 minute walk down from the Firebird Community Centre.” It was very likely that he'd have plenty.
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Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 5:25 pm
"You sound like you're an expert at this already. I hope that you'll have yourself a bountiful harvest this year in return for all of your efforts." Hafwen quipped, tilting her head to regard the tomatoes again before returning her full attention to Marlin. Nodding a few times, she took a step back and smiled at his explanation for the need to take his leave and get back to his plants soon, not at all bothered by this since she figured she had bugged him enough with her ignorance and all.
"That's okie. I've already kept you long enough from what you were working on as a result of my intrusion so I guess I'd better be on my way. I'll be sure to stop by the costume shop the next time I'm in the area though. Thank you." She wasn't exactly sure as to the shop's exact location based on his directions alone, but a quick search on the internet should be able to fix that in a jiffy.
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