Jim: "No....why?"
Me: "Well, I was thinking I might weed the garden."
Yes, friends, this summer's attempt at growing a vegetable garden has been a surprising mix of success and ridiculous failure. The lettuce went crazy, but the spinach never showed up.
The tomato plants grew from seed, but they haven't yet produced one ripe tomato.
The squash and the zucchini went berserk,
and I ended up with zucchini the size of watermelon.
The watermelon vines produced three watermelons...at least that's all I've found, after I tripped over them in the foot-high grass on the edge of the garden.
There may be more, for all I know, but I'm not going in there without backup.
The cornstalks are taller than I am this year, which is exciting, because they're the only things taller than the weeds.
Who knew you were supposed to pull out ALL the weeds? Or, that stomping them down wouldn't keep them down? I pulled out most of the little vines, but left a few of them, because I was pretty sure they were morning glories. They are now strangling the corn stalks, and the beans...and the tomatoes.
I did plant peas, of some kind, but I can't find them now.
I stumbled across a pepper plant yesterday and was overjoyed to find five green peppers, just waiting for me...perfect consolation for all the rotten cantaloupe I stepped on. Ugh.
Last year, I don't remember seeing monster weeds, or zipper spiders,
or losing my owl statue to a jungle of vines...
but then again, last year we had a drought, with a ten-day heat wave. Even the weeds gave up after that.
I did pull out the weeds early on.
I even threw down grass clippings between the rows, and around the tomato plants.
I picked lots of lettuce, a few squash, a few dozen zucchini.
And it rained a LOT.
I thought I had it made. That was May.
Then I left town...for most of June, and part of July. Gardens don't do well without supervision. You need a gardensitter. (25 year-old sons with jobs and girlfriends don't count.) You need someone to go out every day, pull the weeds, pick the zucchini, and maybe even cook some of it...
and mow the grass while they're at it,
so your watermelons and canteloupe don't get lost.
I'll have to remember that next year.
Furthermore, I will remember to pull up ALL the morning glories, while they are little,
because no matter how pretty they are,
they will turn your garden into one giant trellis,
just for fun...
and, maybe one zucchini plant would be better than eight.
Now, I'm going to go buy myself a machete.
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