A garden, a garden...

So, what KIND of garden must we all have anyway? As I look out my kitchen window, I can see four neatly placed garden boxes in the northeast corner of my yard. I notice that there is not a weed to be found in those boxes. Of course there is not a plant of any kind to be found therein. This year the guilt associated with those boxes comes only from not utilizing them to the full measure of their creation. So sad.

The last 6 years of my life here in American Fork have gone a bit like this:

I LOVE the garden in April! Oh yes I do. I can hardly wait to get outside and dig in the dirt after the long, cold winter months have made me feel like a hostage within my own home. The smell of the moist garden soil beckons me, and the sound of the seeds rattling in their Burpee envelopes is like music to my ears. The cheap garden gloves I bought from Wal-mart on some dreary day in February feel like soft blankies as I pull them on over my hands which are cracked and bleeding from the darn cold, dry Utah winter! I sing all the garden songs I can think of when I am out there in April. "Inch By Inch", "The Lovely Garden" "Little Purple Pansies" and so on. A cheery picture, ain't it?

In May I feel proud and energetic as I check on my "gardenlettes" everyday, and bask in the solitude that gardening (and a 6 hour school day) brings. Knowing that I will have a garden helper or two (in the form of Maggie and her best friend, Matthew) as soon as school is out for summer, I cherish the time alone. I seem to come up with way too many "types" of Christ, Satan, sin, repentance, and just about any other religious principle available. The May garden song seems to be "Follow The Prophet," with pats on my back tapping out the beat.

I'm quite nice in the garden in June. Usually by this time of the season, we (that pronoun comes in to play at the end of May) have begun to see little flowers on the tomato plants, and the many squash variants have begun to produce leaves. We would normally spend a fair amount of time meandering through the boxes admiring our well executed garden plan that was born (amid not just a few arguments and outbursts) during a family night in March. At this point in the season, the weeds are kind of cute the way they try to hide under the larger leaves of the squash, or the way they sprout up in plain sight doing their best to camflage themselves by appearing with well matched leaves next to a legitimate garden plant. Before yanking them out of their shallow rooted homes, I usually talk to them and appologize for ending their weedy little lives so soon. Humming (or is that counting to 10 under my breath) has replaced the singing in the garden by the end of June.

I'm not quite as nice in the garden in July. The hot dry Utah weather catches up with me by about July 3rd (which doesn't bode well for the children or the parades on July 4th). At this point, the garden has lost it's "fun summer project" feeling, and the cute little weeds have turned in to something akin to those screaming mandrakes from Harry Potter. The tomato plants have completely taken over their respective garden boxes and are only producing "fruit" with blossom-end rot. The zucchini, squash, and pumpkin plants seem to be hosting endless wasp family reunions. The singing, and even the "humming", has been replaced by ill-timed swear words.

By August, I am no longer in the garden at all. At this point, I have enlisted the help of a cheerful neighbor child (the one who leaves upwards of 40 notes taped to our door over the summer months in hopes of starting her own business) to spray Round-Up on everything green, yellow, or brown within the "garden" area. I then announce to the family that anything that is still alive by the 15th of August is to be attacked with a rototiller! The garden music of the month now borders on "screamo."

Alas, when September arrives and parades of moms with tots pull produce laden wagons around the neighborhood in a feeble attempt to rid themselves of their overabundance of zucchini and tomatoes, I post a handy dandy sign saying "DO NOT offer me garden ANYTHING!!! Give it to the prophet!!"

So... how can I enjoy playing Croquet in the yard knowing that the four garden boxes, resting merely inches in front of the "poison" wicket, sit completely void of any use for which they were created? The answer lies in the nicely laminated sign next to the food storage room in the basement of my home. It says, "CANNED GardenThis Way." Thank you Wal-mart!!