The onset of summer means it's time for vegetable gardening and this year, Twilight is eager and excited to try and start her first garden. She approaches Applejack for some starter advice, but a little bit of egghead vs. stubborn comes into play and soon a wager is struck to see who can produce the best results. Will Twilight's science and magic be able to match up to Applejack's Earth pony know-how?
Now presented as a multi-short chapter story to accommodate my writing schedule.
Cover art created from vectors by:
Flutterflyraptor
Takua770
TheLastGherkin
Chapters (4)
Oh, I can tell this is simply going to be a delight. I'm giddy at the prospect.
- TWC
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Thanks for the comment! I thought this up while fighting the quite volatile Texas weather this weekend working on the garden.
I'm liking this so far. liked and faved!
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It's so refreshing to spy the occasional little gem such as this amongst the other undesirable genres that so frequent this site. A tale of rivalry, tradition vs technology, brains vs brawn, something that could be a plausible episode, nothing outlandish. Bravo, sir, and huzzah.
"LADIES, START YOUR TILLERS!!"
This is gonna be good...
Twilight does have a point. Being an alicorn, her earth pony magic will be augmented several degrees of magnitude over AJ's earth pony magic.
Additionally, I say that the scene where AJ grows a seedling while holding it on her hoof in "Hearth's Warming Eve" was an actual demonstration of earth pony magic, not a stage prop.
So if AJ can do that, imagine what Twilight can do...
Twilight does have the power of an earth pony and her studies will certainly help but I think AJ has this one. She's a farmer, she knows tricks to growing food better, has been doing this for years and probably more well versed in using Earth magic better despite Twilight been an alicorn. Can't wait to see this will go further down the road.
I am not really sure where this is going, because there's not enough ideas to really support it. But I'm gonna favourite it to see what happens.
Hope you do well, my friend!
I like this. While Two is being a bit stubborn, neither party really comes off really badly here like most stories with this premise.
Two's comment about tomatoes as a fruit may reveal a knowledge gap though. Vegetable is a culinary term, while fruit means something different depending on the context. It is a fruit biologically, but as a food, it is a vegetable, NOT a fruit.
Can their bets be any more boring?
I was thinking of loser does the twerk.
Hopefully, it will turn into a draw, or they will find the competition stupid. As I don't want an ending that says "Growing food traditionally is better than doing it with science" or the other way around.
This promises to be a great tale. Twilight's belief in reason and Applejack's traditionalism are two potentially conflicting viewpoints that we rarely see placed together in the same story. Much of this story will be about the two of them's increasingly frantic and debatably ethical attempts to get the advantage. Eventually, I'm fairly sure that they're going to start trying means and methods that are quite risky if not entirely dangerous.
Nothing good came come of any of this in the long-run, of course. Given the results possible from both Earth Pony and Unicorn Magic as well as potions that we've seen (especially in Season Four - 'Bats' & 'Twilight Time'), this could easily end in The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!
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I've got a feeling that it isn't going to get as far as a 'result'. Probably the other four will need to perform an intervention to stop the two of them from accidentally creating a large-scale ecological disaster or something.
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Yeah, this is probably going to turn into a competition of raw power vs. practised skill. I'm also pretty sure that Twilight will use all the magic she knows to try to tip the balance but I don't think the results will be to her... or anypony else's... liking.
[youtube=b3uIKzgcDxo]
I can't WAIT to see where this goes.
This isn't tagged for romance. I'm disappointed.
You used a pronoun before establishing who it acts as an alias for. It's the third sentence.
But this looks promising, you should continue.
"iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIt's... TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!!!"
(UFC Reference)
A nice short story. I'm looking forward to the next part.
Although I'm surprised at AJ choosing "whomever grows the biggest" as the winning criteria; based on Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 I would have thought that she would push for quality over quantity. Still, I'm looking forward to the twisted abominations of magic and science that Twilight produces (and the impending floraphobia for Spike); and AJ spending day and night hoof-tending her 'tamater patch' for the next two months, to the detriment of the rest of Sweet Apple Acres.
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Having wings and pegasus magic didn´t make her better flyer than Rainbow Dash. AJ is right: Twilight, with all her magic and knowledge, cannot match the Apple family´s experience as farmers.
I'm really looking forward to the next part! I feel like I'm reading the plot for an actual episode! Well done.
Poor Twilight. She'll never even get down the license plate number of the truck that's about to
her.
i'm predicting that either she will A) actually manage to win the competition, or B) wind up tying with Applejack, resulting in no sore losers and everypony eating there doubts.
I see what you did there.
[youtube=sYt0dpeyAU8]
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My bet is actually on AJ, in the end. But Twilight will be giving AJ a run for her money. Which will prove the base point, that Twilight can certainly grow quality vegetables mostly from researching the process.
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You know, what if Twilight DOES end up growing killer tomatoes?
Are you sure Fluttershy's thinking of someone else like "That enormous, ripe, juicy....apple".
I've got 10:1 Twilight, 3:1 AJ. Taking all bets, taking all bets.
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Why would she need to be talking about a pony? Maybe it's a relapse.
Yes, Twilight's sense of dignity has been offended; I know it seems silly but she really does seem to have quite an edge of pride to her, doesn't she? She's also maybe having issues about how important this project is (and how important she is) when she's thinking of sending Celestia a request for an altered solar cycle.
As for AJ? Well, we're seeing a little about Earth Pony magic here. It isn't just pumping energy into these plants, she puts her love into them (if Friendship is a physical force, why not Love too?). I wonder if Twilight has figured for the degree to which Applejack cares about these things? It's that extra commitment that may turn the tide.
I also think that Fluttershy is still having Flutterbat flashbacks.
Rainbow Dash as a perceptive and empathetic pony! Who would have thought it? The underlying lesson is, of course, that Twilight doesn't really yet know enough about all the magical and natural interactions that make plant growth work in Equestria to really know for certain what is the most important factor.
The strange thing is that talking to plants seems to work for humans too. I don't know if it's something extrasensory or if plants just respond to human good vibes in positive ways. So, Twilight would be advised not to dismiss certain things as 'magic' when it might not be.
Talking too plants.
I think I remember a Mythbusters episode they did something like that.
Forgotten which one though. And I think it was plausible or something.
Twilight's honesty reassures me she won't cheat on this wager but I still predict AJ pulling ahead of the competition by a mile.
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Everyone has different strengths, what one person knows another could be ignorant of and vice-versa. It'd be like talking to a computer tech and a construction worker, one has certain skills and knowledge they can play on.
Um does Applejack buck the trees?!
Write it in her diary and a letter too Celestia maybe.
...I suspect maybe a drop of miracle grow dropped on Toby...
we need an epilogue where AJ discovers that AB cheated with her miracle growth on some of the plants.
I was expecting more out of the ending but I guess this was a nice way to finish the story.
Pinkie Pie seems to be Ponyville's local bookie for all the gambling.
I kinda want to see what the town's reaction is. Especially if someone realizes that AJ would have grown a bigger plant.
Also, while it was not as close as I predicted, Twilight did do an impressive job on her first try.
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Except we have seen that AJ can grow frighteningly huge plants.
4174558 no, we saw her grow frighteningly huge apples. i figured since her and her family are freaking born to apples, that'd make sense. but i've never seen her grow an abnormally large fruit or vegetable other than apples. but applebloom has showed that she no longer cares for the normal laws of nature, what with her freaky looking 'apple tree.' so, i figured it'd make sense that she'd be capable of something like using a growth potion to cheat, since money is on the line.
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Possible, however we do know the Apples grow other crops, so it stands to reason, if she really put the effort into it, AJ could probably grow a large tomato easy enough. Nowhere near as big as her super Apple of course. As for Applebloom, I would say it may just have never occupied to her since she hasn't perfected the formula yet, but since when has that stopped a Crusader.
4174613 guess we'll never know, unless mister writer makes a sequel or epilogue.
I’d say that Fluttershy still has flashbacks from the whole Flutterbat debacle or is thinking about Big Mac. This could take place before the SugarMac ship became canon, y’know.
4128280 Wait a sec, there’s science behind talking to plants!?
Methinks AB poured some miracle tonic...
Fluttershy is a fruit vampony still. They never fixed her properly. Wonder how she’ll feel about the tomatoes?