I’ve been thinking for a long time about how I could express my gardening enthusiasm in a tattoo.

I’ve never gotten a tattoo before since it always seemed a bit trashy; however, I figured something botanical would work.

Heck, it could even be classy. Botanical prints are all the rage in interior design – why not in tattoos?

The more I thought about getting a plant-related tattoo, the more I liked the idea.

My big dilemma, of course, was – which plant should I feature?

I toyed around with chaya, though that could be mistaken for a maple leaf and I didn’t want folks to think I was Canadian.

I also thought about sweet potatoes, figs, mulberries or even a Chickasaw plum illustration with the Latin name beneath it.

The Florida Food Forests loquat logo was also in the race but I decided against it. I’m always changing my business ideas and didn’t want to get trapped in what might later seem to be a bad decision.

Fortunately, a great idea came to me at last… and it happened where many of my good ideas arrive: outdoors amongst my plants.

As I was wandering through the food forest last week and checking out all the new growth, I almost tripped over the stump of one of my multi-year-old cassava plants and then noticed the lush new growth coming up from the ground.

I thought, “Man… I love these plants!”

And then it hit me: cassava!

That was it!

It was the first perennial vegetable I ever grew seriously, plus it’s just a lot of fun to grow.

I made my decision – and yesterday I pulled the trigger!

CHECK IT OUT!

Yeah, it hurt. Still totally worth it.

Isn’t that great? Rob (my tattoo artist) did a killer job on the details… it almost looks like you could pick the leaf right off my arm.

When I went down to the tattoo place one of my friends recommended (thank you, Joel!), I figured they’d have no idea what a cassava leaf looked like.

Imagine my surprise when I saw it featured in many of their designs.

It wasn’t like there was just a few tiny images in a book, either – cassava leaf designs were EVERYWHERE.

There was a picture of one gal with cassava leaves all over her back, carried by flying cherubs… there was another one where a caterpillar was smoking a hookah while sitting on a huge cassava leaf (probably an after-dinner smoke… my favorite hookah tobacco tastes like apples, though who knows which flavor caterpillars prefer); there was even one guy who had a picture of a gigantic cassava leaf floating above a sunset.

Seriously – there’s a LOT of cassava love going on. I honestly had no idea that the tattoo crowd was that into growing tropical staple root crops. It really gives me a lot of hope for the future of perennial vegetables in our nation – I’m going to have to get connected with the local tat conventions and see if I can score some cuttings of different varieties we can test on the homestead.

I know – getting a tattoo is a big deal, and maybe I’m an idiot for doing it… but I don’t really think so. I’m proud of my cassava plants and am quite glad I found a botanical image I can live with for the rest of my life.

I hope you dig it as much as I do. Manihot esculenta forever!

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