I’ve noticed that many quarrels over the course of my marriage have been about produce. “How could you buy so few apples? You bought too many greens, they’ll spoil!” reprimands my husband frequently. Yet undoubtedly, the most charged of our fraught exchanges revolve around tomatoes.
Each spring he greets the approach of summer with talk of tomatoes. Should he source them from Cheap Sam’s or an heirloom farm in Connecticut? “I have to get these in the ground or we can kiss your gazpacho goodbye!” he said one season when pressed for time after he was forced to fork up $10 per plant at a fancy local nursery.
Once procured, he aims to increase yield through small tweaks to his sowing regimen: compost from the dump, hay from Agway, eggshells, coffee grounds, Epsom salt. My husband is decisive and swift, a defense attorney by day, a kids’ basketball coach by nights and weekends. He gets things done. Me, I’m more experimental, circuitous, and painstaking, but patient.
Each year for the first half of summer, he waters and weeds while I watch, offering the occasional hose when he can’t. A month or so in, there’s the first sighting, which could be a Green Zebra, Roma, or last summer’s prolific species, Sungold. It is at this moment that my husband plucks one and, like a magician, lets it fall effortlessly into his palm and between his thumb and pointer fingers, then brings it to my lips — a tomato engagement.
“Try this,” he says in his most affectionate tone. As the seeds squirt into my cheeks, I nod and commend his efforts. He likes when I praise his produce. He picks another for himself, and we do a tomato toast, giddy with the promise of all things lycopene. After all, what we settle for the rest of the year feels undeserving of the same name.
Suddenly within days we are rich in ruby rounds, converting rapidly from the green globes camouflaged among the vines. And it’s then that I know that the honeymoon is over. The 8-by-20-foot patch demarcated by railroad ties, which up until now was his domain, becomes mine, and I am assigned to water and work within it, then turn its product into tasty things.
Picking tomatoes is my duty because while he sports the blue denim overalls, wide-brimmed beige hat, and green thumb, I am the slight and tender-footed modern dancer who can contort in ways that maximize pick and minimize crush. On days when he’s feeling collaborative, he’s my collector, lending a hand while I steady myself over the chicken wire, then standing at the perimeter with an oversized bowl to receive the literal fruit of our literal labor.
These moments are a rare occurrence that bring about warm feelings (or is it the hot sun?) but usually end in a huff with an overflowing bowl and him uttering, “You finish up. Make sure to get them all.” I’m left in the patch alone, juggling remaining tomatoes in my T-shirt, struggling to balance my way out. It’s not that I mind the task as much as I feel like I’m being bossed around.
As summer stretches on, the tomatoes come faster and faster, and so do his nags. “Did you pick today?”
“I’ll get to it,” I say, in my typical nonchalant way. I’m lounging on a loveseat 30 yards from the tomatoes. He’s not a fan of how I prioritize tasks.
“You’d better do it soon!” he scolds. “I saw dozens rotting on the vine. I set up the garden — you just need to maintain it.”
And this is when I pause to ponder his words, which are not just about our garden, but our relationship. He views his contributions to our partnership and family as urgent and necessary, non-negotiable, while he sees mine as optional. Does he provide the fence and foundation to our marriage, while I simply work within it? Worse yet, do our roles fall squarely along stereotypical gender lines?
I’ve always appreciated how proactive he is with practical, concrete things. He found our real estate, bought our used cars, researched investments. I, on the other hand, manage the connective tissue, shopping and cooking, our kids, parents, medical, etc. Yet he can be domestic too, and I love my toolbox. I’ve just always assumed we each do what we’re better at, but lately I’ve begun to feel that he wants to swap roles, that he resents me.
But shifting a dynamic, like crop rotation, can take years. The recommended minimum is two, some gardeners prefer up to six. But if we don’t, are we at a tipping point? “Tomatoes: A Divorce.”
Once in the kitchen, I set my concern temporarily aside. It’s my turf, and while he makes gastronomic suggestions, I can’t really hear him over my emulsion blender and don’t ask him to repeat himself. Gazpacho is my go-to, and I know I can always dissolve any garden grudge with a generous inclusion of fresh poblano from the farm stand or smoked sea salt. I don’t follow a recipe, I just taste as I go. In the heat of July and August, the cold soup is the elixir of our marriage. When he suggests we freeze some, I utter an unequivocal no — you can’t freeze summer.
There are other tomato outputs too, bruschetta, pico de gallo, and my beloved ratatouille. Oh, how he loves ratatouille! When I made it last year, I felt as if I would be forever immune from any marital complaint.
It’s only as the season draws to a close that I notice my husband’s mood change, not just because we head back to the city, to work and traffic and urban crowds and competition for all things, but because we must leave the tomatoes, many of which, in early September, are just reaching their prime.
Perennially panicked, we extend invitations to local friends and internet repairmen to swing by when they can, but we know the tough truth: Many will decompose on the vine, perhaps turn to compost crops of the future. If there’s one thing we share, it’s an intolerance for food waste.
This year the tomato season is well underway, and I anticipate the first harvest like a first date.
“I didn’t plant only tomatoes this year,” my husband tells me tenderly one day after watering. “I kept some room for the other things you wanted — cucumbers and zucchini and greens.”
“Thanks,” I say, and mean it. Gourds are his love language.
“I was thinking you could pickle the Kirbys,” he suggests. “There will be tons.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll consider it.” And, I will.
Rachel Abrams writes, dances, and works as a user-experience designer in Brooklyn and Sagaponack. She recently completed a memoir about Parkinson’s disease, mental illness, and the night her mother accused her father of poisoning her lamb chops. She is online at rachelink.com.