by Monica La Vella

Created on: May 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 22, 2007

As a first time home owner, I was also a first time gardener. Unless we want to count that one time when I was small and thought it would be fun to plant weeds in mom's garden. Let's not count that.

As a first timer, I researched like the best of them. I searched the internet, read books and I spoke with a very manly looking woman at the local gardening center who hadn't started gardening until her father passed away many years ago. Looking back, I believe I may have learned more about that manly woman than I did about gardening.

She did, however, explain one thing to me. Clay. Those 4 letters meant fun when I was a child. Finding that red, sticky clay was like finding gold! And we made that red gold into funny looking plates that our mom's pretended to really like. They would even use the plates to put their change in. Those were the days. Back when clay meant fun. As an adult it means not fun', back pain' and I really need a drink'.

However, the research must have done me some good because I was able to tickle that clay apart with some gardening contraption that looks more like an alien head with four teeth than a gardening tool. I would fall apart too if I saw something like that come at me.

Raking for what seemed like hours, I had finally worked some dark, rich soil into the mix of clay. I knew my plants would deliciously eat it up. I planted all twenty of my vegetables, fruits and herbs and they looked extraordinary in their perfect rows!

On either side of my garden I decided to decorate with an apple tree and a cherry tree. These delicate little saplings looked superb standing beside my lengthy garden. They looked so happy. Like one big family!

I had read the instructions for the apple tree and noticed that it said they must be pollinated in order for any fruits to grow. Knowing full well that bees are the ones that spread pollen, I put on my most colorful t-shirt and began slowly stepping up and down the garden trying to attract any form of bee I could. I swear I saw one fly past me, laughing.

After my shirt fiasco, I decided to invite over some family and friends to share in a dinner and celebrate our new garden. I was ready to brag about the potential of bountiful fruits on my trees and vegetables in my garden. I was ready to tell them all about the struggles I had with the clay and how everything was going to turn out so well. I was going to tell them all of that, but as they arrived, they asked me questions I couldn't answer.

"Why didn't you split up the vegetable plants?"

"They came that way in the box."

"Did you use peat moss?"

"Who is Peat Moss?"
"Why do you only have one of each tree? How are they going to bear fruit?"

Since when have there been male and female trees? Why on EARTH didn't the manly woman at the garden centre tell me that I have to have one of each in order for the trees to pollinate? Is this just something I am supposed to know?

Gardening is apparently an exact science and I am nowhere close to being its scientist.

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