“I’ve had a greenhouse since the 1970s. Back then, they were made out of glass and stone, and it took a lot of money and strength to build them. My older brother Sharif was the first to build a cellophane greenhouse. All the villagers closely followed whether or not their vegetables would grow. They grew, and everybody knocked down their glass greenhouses.”
Forty years ago, the nyugbyar tomato species were very popular,” says Sadiq. “They grew and ripened very quickly. Then everyone started planting garatag tomatoes. They were rather ugly, but larger and very juicy. With the advent of greenhouses, these kinds of tomatoes lost their popularity. They don’t grow in greenhouses, and it became less profitable for people. Now I mostly grow drento tomatoes.
“The main advantage of drentos are their fecundity and heat resistance. They’re a strong species which you can send all the way to Moscow.”
When asked whether or not he makes a good living, Sadiq says proudly that he’s never sustained losses.
“But my neighbour once used too much fertilizer and his tomatoes rotted on the vines.”
“Sometimes you see a juicy red tomato, but when you cut it open the core is white and inedible. We have parasites in the ground, nematodes, they attack the tomatoes’ roots, and they make little swollen lumps in the ground. This is a disease, a real cancer for tomatoes, because it doesn’t allow the tomatoes’ roots to absorb minerals and moisture.”