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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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“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.