Roving reporter Nicola interviewed Adolescent Néstor, the Cherry-Tomato Plant, from a sunny garden in Peterborough, Canada.

I moved into this new home only two weeks ago. Previously, I was living in a parking lot at a Canadian superstore. I was wondering who would want me? I was excited when Diorella chose me and happy when she took me home to live in a beautiful back garden.

Life for me right now is sweet because I get all the water and all the sun that I want. But life is also changing really fast.

Obsessed with growing

I’m seeing that in the past few weeks my body is changing a lot. I’m taller and I feel inside of me this energy of growing and growing. And I am excited because I want to be tall.

I’m dark green in color and am going to give black and red cherry tomatoes.  I’m so grateful to Diorella and want to give her as many tomatoes as she wants. She told me she really likes to make pomodoro sauce and I want to be the guy that gives that to her.  

To be the tomato plant I want to be takes time. If I wait patiently, and take care of myself, I will get there.

Néstor the Cherry-Tomato Plant speaks

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My mystery attacker

I don’t only want to grow on the outside but also on the inside because I have to fight off the squirrels. Diorella sometimes leaves me outside, sleeping, because it’s hot and it’s good for me. But in the night animals come. I had one episode a few nights ago.  I woke up and found a hole in my pot. Some kind of animal had been digging in my pot.

I don’t know what happened. I’m worried. Diorella is concerned. She thinks it was a squirrel that attacked me but her girlfriend isn’t so sure.


Néstor was interpreted by

Diorella Pugliese, an entrepreneur from Argentina, of part Italian and part indigenous heritage, now living in Canada, who talks to Néstor everyday and coaches him to grow.

Diorella says to Néstor

Trust the process. There’s learning in everything that happens. It takes time to be an adult tomato planet.

Randomly tagged

Diorella was invited by Nicola Gale when they met in the kitchen of a Montreal Airbnb and shared a cup of Matcha tea.

Cover photo edited. Original by Diorella Pugliese.