Have You Seen My Corn?

My fake flowers are dead. That should tell you all you need to know about my green thumb.

Still, I decided to rent space and plant my first garden this year. It made sense to me because I love the sun and fresh vegetables, wanted exercise and a break on the grocery bill, and never shun a challenge. First Lady Michelle Obama did issue this as a national challenge, right?

Trusting soul that I am, I handed over my check, tilled-and-ready plot unseen. I had never planted anything that didn’t come root-bound and ready to transfer from one untilled plastic pot to a larger clay pot anyway, so it wasn’t like (ha!) viewing tilled-and-ready would have let me know their fingers were crossed on both tilled and ready.

I made my first big mistake when presented with the master plan. Honesty might not always be the best policy, especially when dealing with people whose fingers are fused in the crossed position. I admitted that I had no experience, didn’t know how to choose a space, and would appreciate their advice – which got me a friendly, “They’re all the same – tilled and ready.”

I must admit, they all looked the same on the map – black lines on white paper. I decided on a 10 x 15 in the center for no reason other than I hoped the rabbits and squirrels would fill up on the outer gardens before they found mine.

Anxious and ready myself, I rushed out immediately to purchase supplies instead of wasting time on checking out my space first. The first time I viewed my 10 x 15, I was loaded down with seeds and plants to grow three kinds of tomatoes, four kinds of lettuce, four colors of bell peppers, four kinds of hot peppers, three herbs, cucumbers, radishes, cabbage, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, kale, watermelon, cantalope, corn, sunflowers, beets, spinach, green onions, broccoli, and assorted flowers, new gloves and tools. What I lacked in energy I made up for in optimism, which waned only a bit when I discovered that I could not find my 10 x 15 in the center of the grassy, tilled-and-ready field.

I nursed the plants on my patio for a few weeks and waited for tilled-and-ready to be ready. When my daughter announced that co-workers were bringing in food from their gardens, I contacted the owner of the master list and registered a gentle nag. She assured me I was welcome to get started if I wanted to measure off my space.

That night, I dug out my measuring tape, which would not come close to reaching my rabbit-proof area, and called my personal meteorologist to ask when I should plant those things that were beginning to look wimpy in little containers on my patio. “Good news,” he promised. “One more day of sunshine followed by three of rain.” That, he assured me, would make my job easier. Since I had nothing planted, I could simply sprinkle Miracle-Gro™ on the ground and let the rain soak it in.

Oops. I ran out and purchased what I later discovered was a lifetime supply of Miracle-Gro™ for a 10x15 garden. While at the store, I picked up a trellis for my beans and wire-racks for the tomato plants.

Forget them; I was ready. I cut a five-foot piece of string, walked it head-over-tail until I found my space in the tilled-and-ready, and covered it with blue Miracle-Gro™. Positively giddy after that first step, I went ahead and placed my trellis and wire-racks where I wanted my tomatoes and beans.

After three days of rain, I carried the patio plants, seed packets, and hand tools to my not-yet-tilled-and-less-than-ready garden space. Did I mention that my hips and shoulders dislocate, my knees have the support of a wet noodle, and my wrists seem to have a mind of their own, making it unwise for me to attempt stand-up tools like hoes and tillers so I didn’t bother buying them? Probably not, because I ignored those details when I jumped into this project. Good news, though, is that I also have a great sense of humor and enjoy laughing at myself.

Hips, knees, and wrists be damned – nothing would spoil my sunny-day activity. My daughter placed her towel on the ground beside mine and helped me plant my entire garden with hand tools. Within days, the place was buzzing with others who had come in to measure off their untilled spots and ready their gardens.

Another person might have been totally humiliated when the gardens around hers were in neat rows of dark soil, with drainage paths, covered in mulch and plastic, contained in fences, and growing up bamboo teepees instead of haphazard, uncontained groupings in grainy, brown dirt. Not me. Even though I considered burying my head in the dirt after a number of people laughed when I got half way through my response to, “And what have you planted,” I hadn’t quite tapped my humiliation potential.

I’ll spare you the details and summarize what I’ve learned over the last ten weeks.

To the inexperienced eye, weeds and vegetable plants look amazingly similar.

Some weeds are beautiful, and some mock the plants they grown near (corn and onions), leading to humiliating and disappointing errors like weeding out the onions and fertilizing weeds for corn.

Miracle-Gro™ works on weeds.

Baby plants are very hard to see and they mostly look alike.

Baby plants and baby weeds look very much alike.

Some gardeners are inconsiderate and flimsy plastic fencing won’t keep them or the animals out. Neither will blood meal.

Blood meal smells worse than manure.

Even though blood meal is permitted in certified organic gardening, it is best to use it when no humans are around. (probably related to #7)

If everyone is saying, “Knee high by the 4^th of July,” and your corn is shoulder high, don’t brag. Your tall corn just might be weeds and it might break a nice man’s heart when he has to tell you.

Cracked dirt isn’t always a good thing.

You don’t want your cucumbers to be next to the person who waters at noon, on 90 degree, sunny days.

Animals like the center spot as well as they like the outer ones.

When ready doesn't include markings of any sort, it's hard to find your center spot.

In the center, it's possible to have four inconsiderate neighbors and you will positively be in a position where at least half of your neighbors will pass your weeds - uh - garden and snicker.

There’s a good side to this story, other than I've had a great time laughing at myself. Since that part won't make Ruth laugh, and this is Mirthday, I will tell that in part 2.

Pete in the cabbage patch

A bug orgy on my green beans.