Usually, I go a little nuts planting the vegetable garden. We till up half the lawn and plant potatoes, corn, watermelon, gourds, cucumbers, onions, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, yellow squash, carrots, and radishes. Every year, our garden yields two gourds and forty thousand zucchini. I hate zucchini. But it grows, so I plant it.
This year, due to not having as much time and not feeling particularly ambitious, I decided to do a lazy garden. We tilled up a square patch of dirt next to the shed. I found some old green bean seeds from three years ago, so I dug a couple of holes and dropped them in. My mother had some potatoes that had grown eyes long enough for the potato to get up and crawl away on, so I cut those up and dumped them in, too. Our neighbor gave us some wilted pepper plants, so I made room for those. To finish it up, I took a cucumber that I'd purchased in April and promptly forgot about in the vegetable crisper, and gave it a proper burial in the yard. Voila! My vegetable garden was ready to go.
The idea of weeding didn't really appeal to me, so I found some old black plastic garbage bags and staked them to the ground. After a week, I finally remembered to cut some holes in the plastic to let the seeds grow through. I haven't bothered to weed since, and Mother Nature has been kind enough to dump a bunch of rain over the past month, so I haven't had to water, either.
I'm feeling a little smug and self-satisfied, I must admit. This has turned out to be the easiest garden I've ever planted! Nothing's come up yet, so I haven't had to chase any rabbits or woodchucks out of the yard. The bugs have left the black plastic alone (with the exception of the earwigs, who apparently find it the perfect breeding ground) and the birds haven't bothered the seeds. Occasionally I like to take a bowl of ice cream and sit outside within eyesight of the garden, which is my way of tending to it. This is the best gardening experience I've ever had!
Next week, I'll be discussing the exorbitant price of produce at the grocery store. Why have I never noticed how expensive green peppers are in summers past? It's a puzzler!

One of the reasons why I enjoy gardening so much is because of the joy it brings not just to me, but others as well.  For instance, my sister. We have kind of a co-op garden, where we both go in on the plants and the mulch and she helps with the weeding.

I let her plant some stuff that she likes, since we have the room. She chose  zucchini. I hate zucchini, but it makes her happy, so I'm happy. Except that last week when I was weeding zucchinizilla, I twisted my back and popped something in my knee. I hobbled around the garden, struggling to finish pulling up stray milkweed plants without falling over, when I noticed the neighbor in his yard with some of the kids that live in the area. "Can I offer you a zucchini?" I asked (moaned, really. My back hurt like @!@#!)
"No, no," the neighbor said. "I just wanted to show the kids what will happen if they don't exercise and eat right all winter and then try to be Farmer Suzie once the weather gets warmer." The kids looked terrified. I threw my kneecap at him and hobbled inside.

The next weekend, I went out to look at the eggplant, another one of my sister's choices. They'd taken over the garden. You realize, of course, that  I despise eggplant. "Jesus. Mary, mother of God," I griped, picking enough eggplant to keep Sicily in rollantini for years to come. A little while later, while I was sticking the hoe up my nose in an effort to stuff my spine back where it belongs (growing old is no fun, I tell you) I noticed our pastor in the yard, watching me and shaking his head. He was surrounded by his Sunday School class.
"Eggplant?" I offered, lobbing one at him before he could answer. He ducked, then shook his head again.
"I just wanted to show the kids what happens when you take the Lord's name in vain. You have a little bit of spinal cord sticking out of your ear, by the way."
Pastor "K" was ticking me off. My woes were not due to a few loosely flung "J" words. They were due to the fact that I'm pushing 40 and my joints are deteriorating at an alarming rate. I decided to ignore him and check on the watermelon. The watermelon was my choice - it's one of my favorite fruits.
"Hail Mary, full of grace," I started, dropping to my knees.
"You're not Catholic," my pastor reminded me.
"Do you see these plants? Clearly, divine intervention is called for," I wailed. The pastor lectured the kids on what happens when you turn away from your chosen faith as I continued to say a few more Hail Marys and a prayer to Saint Peregrine for healing just to be safe.  Alas, while I was doing this, the last of the withering watermelon strangled itself with its own vine, which I'm positive the Catholic Church frowns upon.
Sure, some other people might have given up at this point. But I figure, with the joy my sister is getting from the plants I hate, and the faith I've inspired in the local youth, plus the healthy eggplant dishes the neighborhood kids are going to be eating for the next three years, it's all worth it. Even the traction and the wrath of God.
A slice of watermelon sure would have been nice, though.

It's been hot and sticky and gross outside for the past few days. Personally, I try not to let the hot weather get to me. Here are some of the ways that I've been able to beat the heat:

1. For outside chores that can't be put off, like weeding the garden, I like to call up my sister and remind her that I would never have broken my kneecap if she hadn't mentioned to my husband a year ago that she'd taken her kids ice skating. She's the one that planted the idea in Jason's head, and he subsequently insisted we go skating, and I wound up on crutches for four months and am still going to physical therapy. I find that if I cry out in pain every time I breathe while on the phone with my sister, it's usually enough to make her come over and weed the garden for me out of guilt (or to shut me up). I'm not totally heartless, though. I try to be good about shooing away the Japanese beetles that land on her after she's passed out from sunstroke amid the zucchini.

2. It pays to paper your neighborhood with flyers offering free housewatching during the summer while your neighbors are on vacation. When the Joneses stop by and ask me to feed their cat while they're in Disney World, I'm always willing to take their house keys. Then I move in to their home for a week, order porn on DirectTV, crank up the AC, and use their pool as my own personal bathtub. Sometimes, I even remember to feed their cat. However, I've found that most of my neighbors are total crankypants, and they rarely ask me to watch their house a second time. 

3. When the humidity has my hair looking like I'm trying to win a Diana Ross drag queen contest, I tell my friends that I've just paid hundreds of dollars for the latest in forward-fashion: the chia-perm.

4. Who wants to cook in this heat? Not me. I like to drive around town until I smell someone cooking on the grill. Then I walk across their yard, tell them meat is murder, and throw a pail of maggots over their barbequed chicken legs. This is usually enough to make them throw the meat at me in disgust. This way, I can scoop up my ready-made dinner, spicy BBQ chicken with a side of grilled maggots, without ever having to turn on the oven!  Win-win!

5. I do try to think of others when I'm relaxing in the neighbor's pool. I like to shampoo the neighborhood dogs with Nair to help them cool off during the summer heat. YOU wouldn't wear a fur coat in 90 degree weather; why would you make Fido do it? Though I have to admit, once Fido's bald as a cue-ball, he looks more like a Yoda.

Feel free to take any of these helpful heatwave hints and use them yourself. Sure, the neighbors have taken to throwing eggs at my house as they drive by, but since it's hot enough to fry an egg out there, it gets me out of cooking breakfast!

I was looking forward to planting the garden this year. I come from a long line of farmers, and there's something about sowing and reaping that is just soothing to the soul. Plus, as I have previously mentioned here, I have many long, meditative conversations with Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Commander of the USS Enterprise, while planting and weeding. I had to admit, I'd missed that pointed-eared hobgoblin over the winter.
Jason tilled our plot, and I was ready to go , map in hand. I had the onions near the broccoli, the gourds in back near the eggplant, and the corn, of course, in a square section as opposed to rows so they would pollenate better. "Admirable," my Gardening Spock whispered softly when he saw my plan.
It was a long day of staking tomato plants, parceling out radish seeds, and forming mounds for the cucumbers. I accidentally stepped on one of the zucchini plants, breaking its stalk. "Leave it," Spock pronounced in my mind. "A stallion must first be broken before it can reach its potential." Sounded good to me. I mentally high-fived Spock and continued digging holes.
I was sweating, slightly sunburned, and definately dehydrated when I squatted down in the dirt to plant the potatoes. It was the last thing on my list, and I was feeling giddy. Out of nowhere, a mosquito the size of a Boeing landed on my back. I whipped around, trying desperately to remove it from my skin before it sucked me dry of blood. That's when I felt my knee—my bad knee—twist sideways. Uh-oh.
"The hell that's not good," Spock said. Truer words were never spoken.
I limped back in to the house, a little worried that my kneecap was now on the side of my leg. "That's not logical," Spock admitted in a monotone, and I thought, "No kidding, genius!" He suggested I try to push my kneecap back where it belonged. "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" I shouted. My gardening Spock went silent. Clearly, I had offended the half-human part of him.
I know Spock isn't happy with me, what with the weeds coming in with the corn and me being unable to kneel to pull them up. But in this case, Spock isn't the Star Trek character for the job.
My appointment with Bones to fix my knee is Tuesday. Sometimes, you just have to be logical.

When I'm gardening, I often hear a sage voice in my head, instructing me on how to sow and reap properly.  No, it's not my father, the farmer, nor my mother, the science teacher.  The voice I hear is Mr. Spock, First Officer of the USS Enterprise.
I don't know why Leonard Nimoy's voice should be my copilot as I weed, but there he always is, advising me on my tomato crops and onion bulbs.  When I'm trying to weed the corn (and spotting the difference between newly sprouted corn and grass is kind of like trying to find a tick in a bowl full of watermelon seeds,) Mr. Spock is there.  "Simply pull up everything that isn't corn," he recommends.  "Whatever remains, however improbable, must be corn."
When something got at the tomato plants, and Jason cursed the rabbits and woodchucks in the yard, Spock was right there, whispering in my head.  "It simply isn't logical," he pointed out.  "The damage is to the top of the plants, not low to the ground where the rabbits are.  The logical conclusion ... is deer."
I love my Imaginary Gardening Spock.  He keeps me company as I weed and mulch, hoe and dig.  When I hesitated to thin out the lettuce, Mr. Spock was right there, pointing out my folly.  "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one," he said solemnly.  He was right.  In order to help the stronger lettuce heads survive, I had to pull out the smaller, yellowed ones. 
The ridiculousness that a fictional television character helps me make my most important gardening decisions is not lost on me. I mean, you have to ask: what does a half-Vulcan know about New England gardening techniques, anyway? I honestly don't knowhow he knows, but really, he's always right on.  I have to assume he must have studied Earth's agricultural patterns at some point in his travels.
Personally, I'm awfully thankful that Mr. Spock pops up in my head when I'm weeding (although I find it interesting that he usually waits until I'm about to pass out from sunstroke before he makes his imaginary presence known.) I'm honored that he takes the time to make sure I properly mulch the potatoes or water the peppers.  I can only imagine that he simply wants to ensure that my garden lives long...and prospers.

We had high hopes for our garden this year.  Last year, New England got about 16 feet of rain over the summer, so we wound up with a muddy patch of rot, but this year, the season looked promising.  Jason rototilled a large patch at the east end of the lawn, and I combed the local gardening stores for the best seeds, the finest bulbs, and the sturdiest seedlings.
We wound up planting pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers, peppers, green beans, carrots, corn, and potatoes.
We had a ton of mulch left over from the year before, so I made sure to hill up the potatoes with mulch every few days.  After about a week, I noticed that my potato seedlings were squirming.  I uncovered a baby mouse.  Then another.  Seven pink babies later, I realized that we had mice in our shed where the cedar chips had been kept, and that I had just mulched with baby rodents.  Not a good sign for the future garden!
To keep pests away, we decided to take a chemical approach.  We picked up coyote urine at Mackey's, and I faithfully poured it around the garden every Saturday.  I quickly learned two very important things: coyote urine should never be administered during high winds, and it takes about 16 shampooings to get that smell out of your hair.  The woodchucks didn't seem to be bothered by it at all as they systematically dug up our carrots and ate them, using the leafy green carrot tops as garnish.  We needed another approach, which is about the time that Jason bought the air rifle.
For all of you animal rights nuts out there, let me assure you that the scope on this air rifle has never been calibrated, and Jason never had a chance of actually hitting a woodchuck and injuring it.  He is a terrible shot. However, the noise did seem to scare the woodchucks, and it was kind of fun to watch them jump up and waddle as fast as they could off in to the neighbor's garden. The carrots were a loss, but the rest of the garden was blossoming nicely.  Except for the peppers.  They never did seem to get over being transplanted.
Pumpkins, watermelons, and cucumbers are all traveling vines, which is why they should never be planted near each other, according to the website I looked up after my watermelons turned yellow and died a slow death.  The pumpkins spread out to the woods and the cucumbers overtook the pepper patch (really, they weren't going to make it anyway).  Our cucumbers began producing at an alarming rate, and we found ourselves overrun.  Our parents, siblings, carpool buddies, coworkers, and mailman began refusing to take any more, and I had to start coming up with some creative recipes.  We had cucumber sandwiches and cucumber dressing, cucumber gimlets and cucumber soup.  I perfected my cucumber salad recipe, which didn't matter, because Jason refused to eat any more after the 26th night in a row of cucumber as a side dish.  I started piling them up at the side of the road with a huge "free" sign next to them, but even our neighbors were apparently sick of them, because now we have a large compost heap of cukes in the front yard.
This compost heap came in handy once we started harvesting the pumpkins.  We proudly went out together to harvest our first one, holding hands and taking a moment to admire its perfect orange symmetry.  Then Jason lovingly cut the stem, and lifted up our first pumpkin.  The rotted-out bottom immediately gave, and a mountain of millipedes poured out of the bottom of this thing.  Had I not been vomiting on my bug-covered Crocs, I suppose I would have appreciated the Halloweenyness of this, but those black worms with their wriggling legs and pumpkin flesh still stuck to their pincers were enough to make me throw in the towel.  We tossed the pumpkin in the compost heap, and headed down to the farmer's market to buy a jack-o-lantern that was free of creepy-crawlies.
The corn, I can report, did remarkably well.  You realize, of course, that I hate corn.