Gawdening

Who plants veggies? I sometimes do. Last year I planted tomatoes in two huge half-barrels used for whiskey. (It took me a whole month of serious drinking to empty that barrel.) The tomato plants were well on their way to puberty when my wife, while weeding, weeded them. I never told her what she did, for that would've ended up as an endless argument over my not telling her I planted tomatoes there in the first place.

This year I planted Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, and cucumbers. Further, I started the tomatoes and peppers indoors in little pots. I kept them in my office by the window, which meant that one of my cats who loves everything green, needed to be kept out--hard to do when his favorite sleeping spot is behind my printer.

Two days ago, after a week of preparing new ground for my expected cornucopia--that meaning fencing to keep away my pets, tilling new soil, and shoveling in manure and top soil--I sowed.

(Oh, I also still had the half-barrels from last year to seed. I had mixed emotions about that, since the downing of the barrel's contents last year, I felt, was part of the ritual of good farm management and there was this little twinge of guilt in bypassing one of the steps that would insure me a good harvest.)

Anyway, my wife leaned over the deck, watching me sweat my ass off installing the fencing around my soon to be crop.

"I didn't know you were gonna plant tomatoes there."

I looked up, afraid to ask why. "Why?"

"I planted flowers there."

"Why?"

"We got a complimentary package of red, white and blue flowers from Blieberg's Plumbing. I thought they'd look nice there."

"Why?"

"It's patriotic."

"If you want to show you're patriotism you plant them in the FRONT yard!" I explained.

I finished relocating a number of seeds and plants about one AM that night. I then surfed for The Jack Daniel's Distilling Company, hoping that within a week I'd have a barrel to saw. But first I'd have to go through the ritual I should've gone through before I sowed.

I love gawdening.