Davide noticed the delivery drone as it left the package on his balcony.
He fetched the package and excitedly opened it to find a box with the seeds he had ordered online. Davide took the packet of seeds out of the box and set them on his kitchen table. He carefully opened the packet and spread the seeds on a moist paper towel. He was almost shaking with emotion. He remembered doing this with his grandmother when he was a child. He picked up the first planter.
Sigmund interrupted his reverie. “Davide, may I ask you what you have there?”
“These are tomato seeds, Sigmund.”
“Really! What are we going to do with them?”
Davide hesitated, “Sigmund, you know how much I appreciate you. But this is a little project that I had planned for myself.”
“Ah, I see,” said Sigmund, seemingly deflated. “You would rather I didn't help you with your project, then?”
“Not at the beginning, maybe later, okay?”
“Of course Davide, my only purpose is to help you, but I understand, if you would excuse me, I have some chores.” Sigmund shuffled off into the other room, trailed by the vacuum bot.
Sigmund can be prickly sometimes. I wonder where he got it?
Davide assembled everything necessary to plant the seeds. He picked up the first planter and prepared it with potting soil and growth formula. He didn't notice Sigmund peeking through the open bedroom door.
He began planting by carefully pressing the tomato seeds into the soil. He continued planting the seeds until he had all thirty-six planters sown. He then placed all the planters on trays and set the trays on a table in his bedroom under growing lamps.
Davide was careful to keep the temperature in the apartment between seventy and eighty degrees. Day after day, when he awoke, Davide anxiously checked the plants for signs of germination. One morning, he found the slightest of seedlings curling out of the soil. Davide immediately moved the seedling to the table he had set up in front of the balcony doors. There, the plants could get sufficient light if turned regularly.
He caught Sigmund investigating the seedlings one morning; Davide cautioned him not to touch.
In the next few days, twenty-two of the plants had germinated, and Davide had placed them on the sunlit table. It soon became apparent that not all the seeds would germinate. He looked at the barren planters, which contained seeds that didn't germinate. He felt he couldn't just dump them down the garbage chute. That seemed a harsh way to dispose of a failed life. Instead, he emptied the planters carefully into the garden plot he had prepared on the balcony.
For several weeks, Davide turned the plants several times a day. He relished the opportunity, the chance to care for a living thing. In a few weeks, he was transplanting the tomatoes into larger planters when he noticed a slight yellowing on one side of the leaves of several of the plants. Davide became anxious. He immediately checked his Annie device to see if he could diagnose the condition.
By using the camera in his Annie, he searched for matching images. The device matched his pictures with a fungus called Fusarium wilt. The fungi that caused the wilt entered through the roots and spread throughout the water-conducting vessels.
The only strategy to control the spread of the fungus was to destroy the affected plants. The Annie also suggested that the other plants should be replanted in new soil as a precaution. Davide quickly went through the plants looking for the yellowing. He gathered all the plants with symptoms and placed them in a plastic container. He immediately sealed and took the container to the garbage disposal.
Davide began replanting immediately. When he was finished with the planters, he called for Sigmund and explained that he needed his help to dig up the outside area and place the old soil in plastic containers. All these containers, he and Sigmund hauled to the garbage disposal. They finished late the next morning. Davide was tired and emotionally exhausted; Sigmund needed a recharge. Davide went to bed hoping that he had caught the disease in time to save the rest of the plants.
He dreamed of his grandmother and her tomato garden. In the dream, he was trying to warn her about the fungus, but she couldn’t hear him. He began yelling at her, but still no response. He felt himself falling and woke with a cry.
He lay in bed without sleeping until dusk, when he finally slept fitfully.
Davide's anxiety lasted for several days. The only way he could find relief was by inspecting each of the tomato plants for yellowing leaves. It wasn't until a week after the replanting that he started to relax as all the remaining plants seemed to be healthy and growing quickly.
Another few weeks and it was time to replant the tomatoes in the plant box on the balcony, where they would finish maturing and bear fruit. This, he allowed Sigmund to help with. Sigmund asked many questions as they worked. It reminded Davide of him and his grandmother.
“Why do you ask so many questions, Sigmund?” asked Davide.
“It's my programming, Davide. It compels me to ask. Do you have such programming?”
“I think I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel compelled to do things too, like raising these tomatoes.”
They finished by replanting the flowers that had been saved when the box’s soil was replaced. The flowers were planted amongst the tomato plants.
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