Every year I’ve had a really pitiful little garden that I spend an ungodly amount of money on to try and coax out a tomato or two. Seriously, do you know how much compost costs?
This year, I realized it was actually cheaper to have someone who knows what he is doing install my garden. So in the beginning of June, I had someone come and plant for me. Let me say: Wow. Someone who knows what he’s doing can really make a garden that can produce food!
For fun, let’s look at a comparison. This was my garden in 2010:
Nice, huh? Some lettuce, some tomato, some basil in nice neat rows. I put down organic compost, used organic fertilizer. That stuff ain’t cheap.
This year, having someone else put in my garden, this is what it looks like:
I’ve vowed to eat a salad a day to use even a portion of the lettuce. We have tomatoes, peppers, radishes, cucumbers, zucchinis, beets, collards, kale, basil, cilantro, oregano, and lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but that’s a start).
So now that I have this beautiful lush garden, I have discovered something.
I hate organic gardening.
Actually, more specifically, I am afraid of organic gardening. I’m afraid of my garden.
Because it turns out that “organic” part? The part that includes “no pesticides”? Well, that’s a big old invitation to every bug and critter out there. And the bugs and critters that live in a garden truly gross me out. To be fair, most of them are fine. Bees, no worries. Slugs? Flick them away without a second’s thought. Ladybugs? Well, those are downright cute. The rabbits? Yes, they may like my veggies, but they’re bunnies for goodness sake! How can anyone say anything bad about bunnies?
It’s the earwigs. I. Hate. Earwigs. I don’t mean I kind of dislike them. I mean I hate them with such a ravishing passion that they appear in my nightmares with those stupid pincher claws and that nasty roach-colored back. And did you know that earwigs like to hang out in-between lettuce leaves? It’s true!
I’m at the point where I refuse to go pick lettuce unless I have Beetle standing there for moral support. In fact, I need to pick lettuce now. But Beetle isn’t home. So I’ll just do without lettuce until she returns.
The other critters aren’t making me much happier. I had rows and rows of gorgeous blueberries and raspberries just waiting to ripen. The birds enjoyed them all. We got one raspberry. The blackberries barely made it. It’s a race to get the tomatoes when they’re ripe enough to pick but before they’ve been eaten by the squirrels.
And let me tell you, we have vicious squirrels. Think I’m kidding? Adam had to rig the garbage can with bungee cords to keep them out, and they still chew through the plastic. I pride myself on my composting. I have two decent looking wooden compost bins. Which just scream to the squirrels, “Come and get it!” I couldn’t figure out why rotten vegetables were all over the ground until I noticed the hole chewed in the sides and back of the bins. Adam pushed the bins together, stuck weeding cloth between them, and nailed chicken wire on the back. So the squirrels gave us a big “F**k you,” and just gnawed through the front.
I refuse to use pesticides. But I also refuse to deal with earwigs and losing my fruit. I see a battle lines being drawn. I’m putting on my armor. If you don’t hear from me in a while, send in reinforcements!
There’s a book called the $63 Dollar Tomato, and your post really reminded me of it. Drawing battle lines with bugs… this fight is going to be good.
Oops, make that $64!
Now we can really call you Farmer Brown….of course you remember the compost pile on Miami Beach, and the reaction of your father when he saw a rat on top of it……