nanopolitics handbook - Minor Compositions

Notes on how to grow tomatoesfrom a tomato— Lisa Burgertraduzione dall’italiano di Paolo PlotegherNext time you eat a tomato that tastesgood, put some seeds aside. You canrinse the seeds and dry them in abowl. At this stage you don’t need toworry about them: but watch out, ifthey are tomatoes from a supermarketthe seeds might not eventuallysprout because the fruit might be geneticallymodified.You will need soil, water and atleast one seed. 1 The soil shouldn’tbe too clayey (it should stick togetherin lumps when it’s wet, and whenit’s dry it’s flowery and compact). 2It’s best to use soil that’s dark andhumid. Put the seed in the soil at adepth that’s the same as its size (so:shallow!).1. You need very little for this.Maybe the most important thing istime: what we are less inclined tooffer might be the patience towardsa rhythm of life that does not coincidewith ours (anymore). What astruggle it can be for us to follow thetemporalities of a sprouting life!2. If you have the possibility ofgrowing a plant in a garden, choosethat over the balcony. This is howI started, in an inter(horti)culturalcommunity garden organized throughan association of migrant womenin Bolzano, Italy. Now it’s since twoyears that I observe (and eat) myplants, and at the same time I try,together with some other 50 people,to make a collective experiment ofsharing, organizing and cooperatingwork. But to talk about this wewould need many more pages...251