Saturday, September 08, 2007

Harvest Moon: It's a wonderful life

Moon might have been better off using that title, but as far as I'm aware she's not growing her own crops. So there.

When I first moved to London I got back into my Gamecube and came very close to buying the game Harvest Moon. I was deeply attracted to the idea of coming home from work, after battling past the rest of the rush hour drones, and then spending the evening tending a computer-generated farm. In the game you grow crops to then sell at market, manage a herd of cattle, grow an orchard... whatever farming desire takes your fancy really. You can even court a local village girl, in the hope that your offspring will grow up to continue your farming legacy. What better to drown out the usual Brixton evening chorus of sirens and gunfire than immersing myself in a pretty, make-believe rural community?

Well....I decided that maybe, just maybe, real life might be ok after all. I may not have room to keep a herd of cows (and after seeing one being sick in Scotland I don't think that I would want to) but runner beans, tomatoes, and blueberries seemed a decent starting point.

And now we're reaping the rewards. We've had loads of beans (pick them when young - they're not good when they get big) and now we're getting tomatoes. Hopefully the blueberry will actually flower or something next year.

5 comments:

Moon said...

I think real harvests beat computer generated ones. They look lovely. Are you sick of beans yet though? Our kitchen used to be full of tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, grapes... whatever would thrive in a greenhouse. And plums. Oh, how we craved a mango.

I planted ginger this year. Didn't grow. Otherwise would happily have used the title. I planted beans. One grew. Then died.

Moon said...

On the plus side my sunflower is now over 2m!

Tombola said...

Shit. I think that means my sunflowers have finished last then. :o( They were the hares to everyone else's tortoises. Tortii?

Moon said...

Tortellini.

frankien said...

Yeah, I think my sunflowers are bigger yet.