What on earth is my neighbour up to? I’m watching him out the window as he lugs a large contraption into his garden, and proceeds to wedge it into one of his meticulously prepared beds. It appears to be an inflatable cylinder of sorts, big enough for three people to comfortably fit inside, and seems to have an entry point akin to a very secure tent flap. It takes up the entire patch of soil, which is already surrounded by a complicated rig of mirrors.
Hang on – this must be what I was reading about on his blog the other day. Yes, I read my neighbour’s blog, but only because he takes every opportunity to remind me to do so. I think he expects everyone on the street to up their home farming game so we can have neighbourhood harvest festivals, but he’d probably have more luck if he came at from an angle that was a little more… conventional.
I mean, even though I read his blog post, I still don’t understand what this device is or what it’s supposed to do – either in its intended application as medical equipment, or as garden hack. Let me try and remember what he said about it. I think it was something to do with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Near Melbourne, apparently, this is an established thing for treating a range of ailments involving oxygen intake issues.
On reflection, I’m pretty sure he made no real effort to really explain how this related to raising tomato seedlings, which is what he said he was using it for. I’m assuming he’s making sizable leaps in logic, conveniently skipping over any kind of biological basis for this approach. That’s totally fine with me – it’s not like he’s not hurting anyone in the process.
It’s just that this thing looks like a fairly serious investment for an undertaking that’s most likely founded on dodgy guesswork. It just seems a little excessive. I suppose time will tell; I shouldn’t write it off until I’ve seen the results. I may come to eat my words in order to eat tons of homegrown tomatoes.