Gardening Update (What, You Thought I Forgot I Have One?)

I’m guessing you’re wondering how my garden is doing, right? I bet you think that because I haven’t been updating you weekly on my progress by how many pounds of veggies we’ve produced and how much money we’ve made at our roadside stand that I’ve abandoned the whole escapade, don’t you? You don’t have a lot of faith in me. Tsk, tsk.

The truth is my interest did wane slightly. I went from checking on the plants three times daily, searching for new flowers and obsessing over every brown spot in each leaf, to glancing out the window at the garden once a week. Then we went on vacation and I was sure we’d come home to a rotting planter box of dessicated plants.

I’ve learned something, though; it turns out plants don’t need love to grow. Who could have guessed it? I guess all those tree huggers are just wasting their time. The trees are like, ‘Dude, we just need a drip system, no need to be all touchy-feely. It actually kind of makes us feel uncomfortable. Plus, you sorta need a shower.’

So despite that fact that I’m like a first grader who really wanted a pet and her mom got her a goldfish and she promptly forgot she had a goldfish and as her mom flushed the toilet on Mr. Goldy she thanked her lucky stars she hadn’t gotten her daughter a puppy, my garden thrives.

Those are my pepper plants. Aren’t they tall and leafy? We aren’t getting huge bells or anything, but I’m attributing the small stature of our peppers to the heat and the newness of the soil (plus I refuse be biased against something just because it’s petite. Good things come in small packages, Jackasses).

My eggplants are threatening to take over the entire garden.

Remember my obsession with the bees and self-pollinating my tomato plants because I was worried they weren’t getting any bee-love? Well now I’m a little afraid to go outside because of all of the freaky little suckers having bee/flower sexy time on my massive basil plant.

A couple of months ago we did start losing tomatoes to what we assumed were asshole neighborhood birds trying to poach all of my delicious hard work. So Jason constructed a whole structure out of PVC piping, bird netting and 83 swear words to keep the stupid birds away.

But then, one day while I was taking pictures of baby tomatoes (so cute you just wanna pinch their cheeks) I realized my nose was three inches from this guy:

Ualughah. I just got a chill. Dude is a creeper, right? Turns out he was the tomato-eater. I’m told he’s harmless to people, but I can’t help but think if I let him crawl up my arm he’s skewer me with that horn and dig out hunks of my flesh to eat, just like he did to the tomatoes. I made Jason put cement blocks on his tiny feet and tie him up in a plastic bag and throw him into the nearest man-made lake. Because Jason’s the hitman of grody tomato bugs.

Unfortunately, now we’re stuck with a giant reverse bird cage that’s too small to contain our plants:

I feel confident there will be much loud and colorful swearing when I break it to Jason that we’re going to need to dismantle and cut down this contraption before it completely strangles my Cherokee Purples.

Speaking of Cherokee Purples, I don’t know if you remember, but these are my heirlooms that absolutely refused to produce one single solitary tomato for quite awhile. Well apparently they were just turned off by my over-attentiveness. Now that I’m playing hard to get, not returning their calls and generally pissing off their father, those babies are completely ready to put out:

Oh girls. *Sigh* You totally would have dated Dylan over Brandon, wouldn’t you?

So what have we learned here, you ask? If your kid desperately wants a pet, but is ultimately fickle and irresponsible, buy her a plant, with a drip system, instead. Then you’ll all come out winners.