With one amusing exception, I have not been, and never will be a gardener. Forced to weed our vegetable garden as a child, gardening implied an odious chore. My wife, however is the greatest ... having fed our growing family very well with all the usual hard work, pleasures and disappointments common to gardeners. I would help her whenever she asked ... but otherwise it was sacred ground, not to be meddled with!
SPRING
We had just moved onto our new farm, and needing a garden ... my wife requested that I take the tractor and break up some grass sod near the house for the garden. I ended up making another plot that was way too much for her needs.
When she saw I was making more garden than she wanted, she called out to me, "We don't really need that area plowed up. Why are you doing so much?"
I was a bit keener than usual, and asked, "Would you mind if I were to try growing something using the extra garden plot?''
"Only if you don't grow the same things that are in my garden ... I already have enough of everything! But, if you do try something ... you must promise to keep it weed free...!" She knew how little effort I'd be putting into that garden. "Seeding it will be the easy part!"
Thinking for a moment, I asked, "So ... just what should I try growing?"
"That's your problem, you figure it out!"
I checked the seed catalogues, and in no time had the answer. There were neat things there ... like popcorn, peanuts, catnip, and such. I had no idea these would grow in our northern climate, but the seed catalogue claimed you could.
Merrily ploughing back and forth in my new project with the tractor, I soon had the extra plot done to my satisfaction. A bit stony, rough, full of grass roots ... but it was mine.
As I was carefully planting the last of my precious seeds, I noticed my father coming over to see what I was up to. I was a bit embarrassed, dad finding me gardening. I had always put up such a fuss about having to help him as a child, even though I knew now how important that garden produce was to our family at the time.
"I hear you're putting a garden in!" He laughingly said. "What all are you planting?"
"Oh, just the usual." I muttered back, secretly hoping he'd just leave it at that. I groaned as I saw him pick up the empty seed packets.
"Do you call THAT a garden!" was my father's loudly voiced opinion. He laughed, adding, "That's just ridiculous, you haven't grown anything worthwhile. It's not even a flower garden!" He turned and walked away. I think he was still talking, sounded like he didn't care for peanuts, to put it mildly. Fortunately he didn't return till the garden was up and running.
Walking back to the house, my spirits a bit shaken, I saw the telephone repair truck pull in. Our phone had been out for a couple of days. It didn't take him long to check at the house. "Nothing wrong here," he said with a know-it-all look on his face. "Where did you do the excavating?"
"Excavating?" I was bewildered. No one had done any.
"Well the underground phone line's been cut, so someone has to have been digging!" He was getting pretty assertive.
"Nope!" I was positive there had been none. That was just before we walked the line with his monitor ... overtop of my new garden ... where his monitor started to beep!
"You must have plowed too deep!" he said, giving me a look of disgust, "That phone line is usually four feed underground!" He proceeded to lay a temporary phone line right through my garden. There it stayed all summer long.
SUMMER
It was the time of rapid growth ... for most things. Weeds grew out of control. Corn grew high. Even the catnip grew. Not the peanuts though. Not even one. But, all my garden was quite overshadowed by the huge growth of my wife's neighboring pumpkin patch. The huge leaves ran everywhere ... vines growing into the honeysuckle hedge, right on down those, then up into the neat row of ash trees alongside the driveway.
Weeds. They were completely out of control, and I hated them. I considered my options, and came up with the best. The big gasoline powered string trimmer. I was calling it a lost effort. Nothing to be done but level everything!
Just as I started the motor, who should show up? My wife and my dad. They had obviously seen me walking over with the string trimmer, and knew what was about to happen.
Before they got to me, I knew what I had to do. I had half a row done before they were close enough to shout over the noise.
"So ... it looks like the demise of your garden?" Dad asked with a smirk on his face.
"Oh heavens no!" I shouted over the noise of the engine. "Look how easily I cut through the weeds and leave the corn!" It was actually amazing. I looked back and saw the two of them turning back to the house ... laughing ... at my expense.
FALL
It was time for harvesting. I was a little proud of my corn patch, even though there were a few comments about the cross-pollination of the other pure-bred corn. My corn ears seemed never to mature as well as the regular kinds, but they could wait till winter, and give them a chance.
I knew it was coming, and didn't relish his visit. My dad was out to see how my garden had faired.
"Never in my life!" he exclaimed, as we walked together over the lawn, down past the ash trees with their large, beautiful orange pumpkins hanging over our heads.
"And look at those in the hedge!" I enthusiastically pointed out more lofty pumpkins. I couldn't take credit for them, but it really added to the whole picture!
After checking my funny little white cobs of popcorn, with all their little sharp, white, spiked kernels, dad turned and walked back to the house, just shaking his head, not saying a word.
WINTER
Just before winter arrived, along came the telephone guy, with a large caterpillar tractor.
"We're here to bury the line, so if there's anything valuable out there ... you better move it now!" My popcorn was the only thing valuable. I ran out and harvested my basketful of cobs. The huge machine crushed everything in it's path as it laid the new phone line ... supposedly 4ft into the ground. My garden was flattened and trenched.
I never touched that garden plot again.
Oh, and by the way, the popcorn popped really well that winter, actually! We had enough for a few winters!