North Park by Ray Muth

Super Gardener
by
Ray Muth

"Weed or flower?" I wondered. Hmm... This was how my day off began a week ago when my only agenda item was to transform into super-gardener. My equipment - shorts, shoes, seeds and a hoe. What a day to be free. Nope, no dogs allowed. It was my turn to commune with nature and those rascals weren't going to spoil my planting so inside they went.

Back to the problem at hand. "Weed or flower? Hmmmm.. Must be a weed. Those big old ugly leaves have to be a weed," I convinced myself. So out it came by the roots, then another, then another. Heck, this gardening came easy to me. Anyone could do it. I began whistling Zipadeedooda pulling out those nasty weeds. Mr. Sun was on my side. His radiance shone upon me. Mrs. Bluebird flew by to pay her respects. "Don't be a stranger," I yelled. Even Ms Rabbit came by for a quiet interlude nibbling at some of my weeds.

Then reality struck. First, I skillfully broke one side of my hoe against a rock while trying to perform a generally accepted gardening maneuver. Then, as I reached down to pick up the broken piece, it began to occur to me that something was terribly wrong.

"Wow, this thing with cool flowers on it right here has the same kind of leaves as..darn," I said, as I held up a pulled weed to compare it against the beautiful flower. "I've been pulling out perfectly good flowers for the last 30 minutes.

"Replant? Yeah, replant. You can do that with flowers," I told myself. After replanting 3 weeds, I became frustrated. "Darn, these things wilt fast. They won't stand up," I cried. What to do? "Let go and cut your losses," I declared to myself.

"Keep it simple Ray. Wait another month before playing that weed or flower game. Heck it takes an expert to figure out flowers, mushrooms & such. Everyone knows all flowers were weeds before domestication. Plant new stuff. Be creative. Yeah, that's the ticket. Planting is far more practical. Besides, flowers are decorations. Vegetable gardening is food. Stick to vegetables," I demanded.

So first came the tomatoes. Then came beans, carrots, corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, beans and beats. After a few hours I was crawling around on all fours throwing around Miracle-Gro like a kid in a sandbox. I was truly a gardener. Then as I unwittingly wiped the sweat off my face for the 100th time with my dirty hands, down came the rain. But it didn't matter. I was a gardener. Gardeners can handle a little rain. Then the rain began to come down in sheets and it was time to make a run for it. I raced back up the hill and tugged on my sliding glass door. It didn't budge. Somehow my wonderful dogs tripped the floor lock on my only way back in. "Open this door you, you. oh forget it," I shouted as my dogs smiled from their sheltered den.

I raced to the house of the only neighbor I had met. I rang the doorbell 3 times and nobody was home. Then I noticed my dirty, gruesome reflection in his storm door. "Oh man, you look like swamp thing in a tarzan outfit" I grumbled to myself. "You are one scary looking guy. I wouldn't let you within 10 feet of my home. How are you ever going to approach some neighbor you never met, explain you locked yourself out, ask to use their phone, and drip mud all over their house."

So I had to do what every smart gardener does. I had to break into my well- protected home. The gymnastics involved with using a broken hoe to pry open my garage door window while standing on a bucket that kept buckling under my weight was challenging enough. But figuring out how to pull myself up through the window and then lowering my greasy body 7 feet to the floor without breaking any bones was a gardening engineer's nightmare. After an hour or so, I was in.

Next year, I'll do what every smart gardener would do. I'm going to strap my dogs to the plough, throw out a few seeds and get a tan.

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