by Michelle Shelton

Created on: May 17, 2009   Last Updated: October 26, 2009

This is one of those stories that I would never believe if I had not been there. It starts out innocent enough and....well, you will find by the end, you are on the edge of your seat! Fact is, only a true gardener would think this could be real. It probably belongs on....The Twilight Zone.

In 1995, I didn't know the difference between a hosta and a tomato plant. By 1996, I became a poster child for Organic Gardening. I was not only a slug hunting fool, I could spot AND identify a caterpillar from 30 yards! Gardening became my new obsession. We bought ten acres in Iowa and I wanted the full farm experience with chickens, geese, horses and a bunch of kids. I had never in my life gardened and here I was taking on a HUGE garden plot in the middle of no where Iowa.

When I met my husband in 1989, he didn't have a clue what lie in store for him. He grew up in the city. I grew up outside a small town in Nebraska on a private lake that my parents owned. So, we were surrounded by farms, we just didn't farm. He and I met in Phoenix at a Blues Club and were married just a few months later.

Little did the big city boy know when he met me that only eight years later he would be living in the middle of farm fields in Iowa.

We moved to Omaha in 1990 to be close to my family and somehow over the next few years, we managed to find our way to an old farmhouse on ten acres in Iowa.

I had always liked houseplants and I had never had an opportunity to have a real garden. So, when the opportunity arrived that first Spring, I set out to have myself a garden. The old homestead already had a good start for me. There was a Cherry bush, asparagus, hostas, ferns and day lilies scattered about the property.

There was a garden area that must have been 50 feet long and 15 feet wide and the first warm day I was out there working the soil. I really didn't know what I was doing. I began to ask neighbors, friends and family for a piece of their garden. In other words, I was always bringing home clumps of daisies and other various perennials that I would spot in their yard and I would plant them in my yard. Before you know it I had a massive garden with all sorts of flowers and plants.

Iowa has the richest soil ever! I knew I could screw up almost any planting and the forgiving soil would nourish my little plants back to hearth. Our little slice of the country had nearly 5 acres of woods and the leaves had been working their way into the ground for years. A drop of water to the soil and it would

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>