Garden, not gonna do it

“Bless my heart”

    If my existence depended on physical exertion I would’ve missed the last 15 Christmases. I just don’t have the stamina to do any work outdoors that require lifting, lugging or stooping for any duration.

After 15, maybe 20 minutes I start questioning the value of the project. Any project. -- “But, we can’t afford to have it done. It’s up to you, Sweatpea. You must do it!” – That was my impersonation of Kay, guilting me into a project.

I’m past the “you-call-yourself-a-man” guilt. Way past. Kay no longer has a hook to hang that hat on. Yet, every spring she comes up with projects. Too many of them involve me. I’ve said it many times and many ways – I’m not big on projects. 

Kay still hasn’t gotten past the compulsion for a vegetable garden. I don’t know what image she keeps drawing up in her Edenesque delusion, but it’s in no way tied to reality. Tell her that. No, I mean, YOU tell her that.

    Still, she studies tomato plants every time we go to the garden shop. I’ve told her, “Sweetie, you can look all you want, but if any of plastic pots make it home, I’ll torch ‘em.”

Yes, it sounds cruel. But if you dug up just one yard of soil in my shoes, you’d be weeping with me. Go into the storage room over there and see if you find a tiller. There is none. I’ve yet to buy, borrow or steal a tiller. I’d come closer to buying a bread oven.

Tillers – like chainsaws – work for other people. Not me. Dennis let me experiment with his once, and the thing just walked across the yard. Did a number on a lawn ornament, but did nothing to break the soil.

No, if a garden gets tilled in this yard it gets tilled by Mark with a shovel. The mere image burns. I’m considering a movie deal.

Kay tries to help – bless her heart – but she carries on like she’s digging a dam in Idaho. (I put the “bless her heart” in just to save my rear.) So, I dig, I get the area all ready for planting, then I plant… with Kay instructing me about how I’m doing it all wrong. Not deep enough, too deep, too close, too rough with the roots… Ten minutes of that and you try to go gentle with the roots. It’s impossible.

After the planting, Kay pretty much forgets about “her” vegetable garden. I water, weed and watch for varmints. In our last garden I discovered deer had feasted just before the plants bloomed. I engineered a nighttime enclosure around the lush area using sawhorses, old window screens, garbage cans, and the wedding album. -- Bless her heart.

Every evening right after the news, Kay would hear – “Oops, I forgot to put up the garden fort.” -- I’d go out and construct the stupid barricade.  Two nights before my three-tomato bounty was to be harvested, a rabbit walked/hopped through the gap between a sawhorse and garbage can and destroyed everything within the confines of Fort Hopeless. Could’ve been a gang of raccoons. They were masked.

They didn’t care too much for the bell peppers. Just enough to trounce ‘em. Loved the tomatoes. Who doesn’t? Kay was heart broken. “We need to build a big tall fence around it next time.” We, Kimosabe? Build a fence?

Have you ever seen me dig postholes and stretch wire? It’s not pretty. I once had a lady walk over from across the street and spell me. “Son, you’re doin’ it all with your back. That’ll kill ya. Here watch this…” -- Granny Foster. I loved that old woman.

Even if I were able to put up a fence, there’s no way I’d spend $100 for materials to protect a harvest of half dozen tomatoes? I’d come closer to spending money on a polo mallet.

This spring I stuck to my guns. No garden. However, I did buy and haul 24 bags of black mulch to spread in the flowerbeds around the hose. Do you know what black mulch is? It’s black. Says so right on the bag. And, it’s guaranteed to stay black for a year. After that—How should I know?

Kay wanted 22 bags of black and two of red. I don’t even ask. -- Odd they don’t market weed-colored mulch. It looks like you have weeds, but you really don’t! Get it?  Or camo-mulch. No one will know you mulch!

    Anyway, I ended up spreading 20 bags of mulch, before I had to quit. Of course, Kay helped – bless her heart. I may have finished had the mulch not aggravated an old foot rash of mine. I was wearing the camo-Croc sandals that Kay got me. Not made for mulching they were.I got pine chips in my socks and inside my crocs. My white athletic socks will be black for at least a year.

Before I stopped spreading, I saved just enough energy to clean up my mess. There’s a lot of mess gets perpetrated during a major mulching. If you finish a project, and don’t account for the energy necessary to clean up after yourself… well, bless your heart. –You can get away with saying anything if you do a heart blessing. The Babylonians invented it. They were big gardeners.

End

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