The $64 Tomato by William Alexander

nonfiction
How one man nearly lost his sanity, spent a fortune, and endured an existential crisis in the quest for the perfect garden.

If you have ever tried to make a plant grow, you'll love Alexander's hilarious tales of gardening. City folks might not believe the chapter with the groundhog who learned how time his jumps between zaps of the electric fence, but as a former country girl, it really is possible. I particularly enjoyed reading about his determination to garden organically, but how he slowly caved in to the lure of chemicals in the end. Organic gardening just is not as easy as it sounds! Some bugs are just too formidable.

One thing did alarm me, however. Alexander and his wife have two children. His book takes us from their early childhood into their teen years. These two kids do almost NO work in the garden, during all those years. Period. Alexander expresses some disappointment that they are not interested, but doesn't want to make them do it unwillingly. Yikes! For me, that is a scary type of parenting. Is seeing their father work amazingly hard going to give those kids a work ethic of their own? My own father sure made us kids work hard in our garden, and of course, I hated it at the time. But I learned a lot, particularly how to work hard. I'm sure I'll never know how those two turn out, but it does make me wonder.

However, parenting is not at all the point of the book. If you have any interest in gardening, go for it!