Tag: gardening

Spring is Sprung

Spring is here, the days are getting warmer, and it is time once again for me to start the annual garden. The dirt is tilled, and the weeds are already turned under, so what comes next is the selection process for what types of fruit and vegetables I want to (attempt to) grow this year.

There are some basic items that I plant in the garden every year. I always make sure to have some tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and cantaloupe since these are all fairly easy to keep alive and they tend to consistently produce edible items year after year. But in addition to these annual staples, each year I try something new just to see what happens.

This usually ends badly.

For example, about ten years ago, I tried planting two avocado trees. They were both dead within a year. The following year, I planted two more, because clearly I had not yet learned my lesson. The trees are still technically alive, but I have very little hope of ever seeing any fruit on them. The fact that both trees currently have only about seven leaves on them is not encouraging.

Once I realized that avocados were not going to be a thing in my yard, I moved on to planting artichokes. I started with four plants. Two months later, I had one. By the end of the third month, I think the survivor was feeling so lonely without his friends that he committed suicide. I found him, brown and wilted, lying in the dirt outside.

He didn’t even leave me a note.

I attempted planting artichokes again the following year because, as I said before, I just can’t take a hint. I ended up harvesting one small artichoke before all four of my new plants dropped dead. Better results, but still not exactly a rousing success.

Avocados and artichokes? Nope and nope.

I have attempted corn and string beans, which are both supposed to be easy to grow. They were. The plants thrived. They both took up quite a bit of garden space, however, and when it came time to harvest, I realized that the bugs had ended up with more of the end product than I did. Neither crop was really worth the effort of planting.

Strike corn and string beans from the list.

Two years ago, I tried planting kiwi plants. EM1 loves kiwis, and I thought it would be a really cool addition to the yard if I could get them to grow. I bought two plants from the nursery and planted them in the garden.

I can hear you all asking, “Did you get kiwis?”

Well let me tell you. No. No, I did not get kiwis.

In the middle of July, during the warmest part of the summer, both plants turned into a pile of brown sticks poking out of the ground. I figured I had killed them like everything else I had attempted in the past. I left the sticks where they were, more from laziness than any real hope of the plants reviving, and the following year, to my great surprise, they came back. In the spring both plants produced new leaves and a bunch of little white flowers. I figured I was back in business.

Then in July, I had two larger piles of sticks poking out of the ground.

This spring, the kiwi plants have turned green once again, but I am not getting my hopes up. Past experience suggests the little bastards are just messing with my head, and I’m not going to fall for it again.

Fool me once…

Now that we are caught up to present day garden disasters, I am back to the original question: what should I plant this year?

Well, this year I have decided to plant blueberries.

Why blueberries? I don’t know. Why not? I figure I can kill blueberry bushes just as easily as I could kill anything else, so why not get creative?

I admit I know absolutely nothing about blueberry bushes, so the odds are really good that I’m going to murder these little guys, too. I am prepared to live with that outcome. I’ve gotten good at choking down the disappointment of dead plants in the garden year after year, so one more botanical failure is not going to be a big deal.

I read a few articles about blueberries before I bought the plants. I figured, maybe if I know a little bit more about them, I would have a better chance of keeping them alive longer than a few weeks. The article said they like a lot of water and that they thrive in acidic soil.

I’m happy to water them, but I don’t know what acidic soil is. I don’t know if the soil in my garden is acidic or not. And, if it isn’t acidic, I have no idea how to make it acidic. I’m starting to suspect the blueberries are pretty much doomed to the same fate as all my other gardening projects.

Sorry little guys. It was nice knowing you.

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A Thorny Problem

wild rose bush. a collections of thorns with a few small red flowers.

This week, I went to war.

I met the enemy in his own stronghold and did not flinch. Although my foe was firmly rooted and did not give an inch without taking a measure of flesh in return, I emerged battered, exhausted and bloody, but victorious.

Mostly.

If anybody reading this has rosebushes growing in your yard, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I think I have discussed the bushes that populate my front yard before. They are great big balls of thorns with a bad attitude. They are vicious weeds pretending to be flowers, and I have never successfully pruned those hateful brambles without requiring some degree of medical care in the aftermath.

The bastards I am referring to are not your typical rose bushes. These are called “wild roses,” which is a polite euphemism for “tangle of barbed wire designed for maximum mayhem.” The fact that this thing is even considered a “rose” is due to its periodic attempts to produce a tiny red flower that – if you stand far enough away and cross your eyes – mimics something that might loosely be considered rose-like. Don’t be fooled. These little spots of red are merely the lure this barbed beast uses to draw you in before the attack. It’s like an Angler Fish, sitting in wait for something stupid enough to take a closer look.

As I said, I believe I have mentioned them before, but I have broached the topic for a second time because this year I decided, once and for all, to do away with the malevolent monstrosities. I was fed up with the constant, annual battle to hack my way into their midst and cut them back into something resembling a manageable size. I was tired of throwing away the shreds of whatever remained of my clothing that day and then mopping up the blood on my bathroom floor like I was trying to hide a violent crime scene.

And, no longer was I willing to stand in my driveway during the rest of the year and stare at those waving tendrils of evil as they taunted me:

“It’s almost that time again. You and me, garden-boy. We’re going to dance.”

Well, this year, I vowed it would be our last dance. When it was all over, one of us would own the yard and the other would be dead in the driveway.

When the time came, I sent an e-mail to my daughters to tell them that I loved them, kissed my wife goodbye, and walked out of the house without looking back. With holstered pruning shears and a shovel over my shoulder like a soldier marching in formation, I went to work.

There were ten of them, and only one of me, but I did not hesitate. I knew what was being asked of me and I accepted the risks.

Like most survivors of battle, I do not want to discuss too many details of what occurred. It’s too difficult to think about without emotionally reliving the trauma. Suffice to say, it was utter chaos. There was screaming, prayers for strength, wails of despair, blood and tears.

There was also lemonade. That was nice. But mostly, it was blood and tears.

I recall one moment of perfect clarity in the maelstrom. I was lying on my back on the driveway, panting and feeling my heart racing in my chest. Five of my enemies had fallen against my relentless assault, but five more remained, guarding the front lines and awaiting my next charge.

Through an unspoken, mutual agreement, a brief truce had been called. It was like Christmas day in 1914, when the U.S. and German soldiers decided that although we are still at war and will soon resume killing one another, for this fleeting moment in time we will stand down and let each other coexist.

I could see a few white clouds overhead, drifting through an otherwise clear, cold, blue sky. Somewhere in the distance, birds were singing in the trees as they called to one another in greeting.

It was … peaceful.

Then I heard it. That raspy, low voice. “We gonna do this thing, or what?”

I looked up and saw the nearest rose bush waving its long, thorny appendages in my direction. Two tiny flowers shifted to gaze at me like glaring red eyes from hell.

“You gonna lie there on the ground all day like a putz, or are you ready for round two?”

Okay, I may have been hallucinating a little bit. I am really not in great physical shape and I might have been experiencing the early stages of heat stroke.

I pushed myself onto my hands and knees, and shakily climbed to my feet. It was time to show the world what I was truly made of. So, picking up the shovel one more time, I faced the remaining bushes.

We stared at each other for a long, hard second. I thought about the stories of great heroes of the past, and how they threw themselves against impossible odds. They pushed forward despite the likelihood they would not survive their adventures.

Then, I gave up.

Yup. I dropped the shovel and went back in the house. It’s a bunch of plants. They’ll still be there tomorrow.

As I write this, there are five wild rose bushes still lining the driveway. I hate them, but I know my limitations. Maybe, I’ll tackle them again next week. Maybe not. Either way, I’m going to let them sit and worry a little while about when I might come at them again. They’re not going anywhere, so I have the element of surprise on my side. I have time to scheme and plan my next assault.

Or, maybe I should just hire a gardener.

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