Untruth #7: Throwing netting over your fruit trees will keep the birds
from eating your ripening fruit.
Truth: The birds actually love this one, as they hop up into your
branches and can eat all day long without worrying about getting eaten
themselves by a hawk.
Untruth #8: The catalogs are full of thousands of different veggies, so
you must plant all of them.
Truth: Plant only
what you will eat. Also, learn what you can plant together. I learned that
if you plant cucumbers and gourds next to each other, you get mutants that
are neither edible nor decorative, just disturbing.
Untruth #9: If your children help in the garden, they will be proud to eat
the Fruits of Their Labor.
Truth: Kids are kids and kids hate veggies. This can also work
against you when they name each tomato, and you are not allowed to eat
them either.
Untruth #9 1/2: Working together in the garden will enhance the sibling
bond.
Truth: One year my daughter gave her little brother a radish, claiming it
was a strawberry just to see the look on his face at the first bite.
He fell for it every time. Yes. Every time. She is now
in law school, and for years he harbored a grave suspicion of all food
products.
Untruth #10: You
will save a bundle on your grocery bill by growing your own produce.
Truth: After the tilling, purchasing and planting, mulching,
fertilizing, pest deterring, watering, harvesting and putting up, you will
be munching $10 carrots. My daughter did make a tidy sum one year
growing and selling pumpkins. We planted them amongst the rows of
corn and they did well. This was in Wisconsin, where the Yankee
raccoons are more civil than these Southern Rebel raccoons and I could
actually eat my own sweet corn and have enough left to freeze (sigh).
To New Gardeners planning a first garden, these veggies are easy to grow,
and most likely to be eaten: green beans (get the bush type unless you
want to build poles), tomatoes (get cages), squashes, cucumbers, corn
(needs lots of room, and a razor wire fence for protection).
Beware of zucchini. If you must grow it, buy a packet of seeds,
plant one, and throw the rest away, better yet, burn them. You will
still be slipping surplus zucchinis into strangers' purses just to get rid
of the damn things.
This year we will again plant a garden, for Hope springs eternal; there is
no finer workout than an hour or two in the garden. Country life
just doesn't seem complete without those precious gems from your own
garden: the one tomato that doesn't have rust, the one strawberry
that doesn't have a resident slug, squash yellow as sunshine, corn sweet
as candy.
Hand me that
seed catalog, would you? I hear the call of the land. (Sounds suspiciously
like giggling raccoons...)
