A few years back I blogged about how deeply ignorant I was of gardening, landscaping, farming in general, and really, just keeping house plants alive. It's not that I don't appreciate and understand how vital farming is to all our lives, or the satisfaction and even zen that many find in home gardening and landscaping (ok, I don't get the latter as much, but whatever). No, it's not that at all.
Often, you put in time and hard work and things go inexplicably wrong. Like when plants don't thrive, or get ravaged by pests. Gee, I'm so glad I bothered. I'm so glad I weeded, and watered, and watched for weeks so I could grow this one tiny, lumpy ass pepper right here. No, I don't wish to learn from this experience. I just wish to stomp around, rip all this bullshit out and go buy it from the store. I have a day job, dammit.
I also hate when people casually throw around fancy in-the-know gardening words like "pruning," which, by the way, always makes me think of someone shriveling into a prune.
What happened to that boy!?
Oh, the Smith boy? Yea, he just up and pruned. Isn't it awful?
A pruning? Gasp! Tragic! He's so small and wrinkled now.
Yea. He's weirdly sticky, too. Terrible thing.
Growing up, I was surrounded by farmers and gardeners - we lived on a family farm in Italy, with chickens and turkeys - our neighbor, who did most of the farming for us while my dad ran his mechanic business, had an apricot grove and raised pigs...our backyards connected with a small wheat field and a tiny vineyard and we had walnut and fig trees. I even picked fava beans, split them open, and ate them on the spot...yea I know it sounds like a romantic movie set in the sunny Italian countryside and maybe you want to punch me right now. But it's all true. It was like a movie - except the part where everyone gathers for the pig slaughter...but don't worry, my parents didn't let me watch (pssst I could totally hear it though). My grandma, however, happily let me assist her in killing and plucking chickens. Italy was no joke.
Back in the States, my grandparents, who lived across the street from us, kept an impressive vegetable garden, the harvest of which (is that what you call all the stuff that's picked after it's ripe?) was plentiful enough to give tons away to neighbors and friends. They also had flowers and lovely shrubbery all around the house and kept everything neat, weeded, and pretty. On their own. Like magic.
My parents grew tomatoes and other stuff in our suburban backyard for a while too...I don't recall what else because I was too busy being annoyed that they made me water the tomato plants during my super important teen years, when I had places to be and people to see. Two big coffee cans per plant. So.many.plants. The point of all this is that despite being raised this way, none of it stuck or rubbed off on me, or seems to be in my blood. None.
Fast forward a couple decades to home ownership and the years of wanna-be gardening and landscaping - trial and error, motivation followed by utter neglect, confusion and doubt, and I will finally admit that despite some new skills and a few minor successes, I hate it all. So, after all, that's it - that's what it is: I hate getting dirty and grubby, toiling in the yard until I'm completely beat, only to realize I'm barely making a dent. Also, there's nothing worse than surprise worms and other squiggly, squirmy little creatures, so obviously pissed about being disturbed. When I see a shed snake skin, I gag uncontrollably. I can't be alone here.
The only things I like about gardening are my flowered gardening gloves - I own several pairs. Like I do every first pretty day of Spring, I dig a pair out of the garage and spend a few days wandering around acting like I know what I'm doing...gloves on, rake in hand, all sorts of determined. Mostly I push the wheel barrow around and freak out about how much needs to be done, imagining the armies of weeds getting ready to sprout just under the surface...and I replay in my head the way all my green-thumb friends start talking in seasonal smack:
Oh, I am thinning out the Fuckface lillies, do you want some?
Time to cut back the Smugjerk bushes!
Better deadhead these delicate Know-it-Alls!
I must take a cutting of these Pompous Perennials!
Hmm, the tomatoes must have Blythering Dumassery disease this year.
I love you all, green-thumbed friends. But that's how you sound to me on the days when I can't tell a weed from a rose bush...or on the the day I realized I killed the parsley. I KILLED THE PARSLEY. As an Italian, I should be able to grow parsley in a desert - no? Clearly I bring shame to my people.
I also don't think I have any rosebushes, but if ever I did, I probably pulled them. Oops.
A couple of years ago, I was under some sort of possession, and went apeshit buying up flowers and building little rock walls, and mulching, mulching, mulching. I still don't know where it came from, but I was excited, machine-like, and felt all sorts of accomplished. Unfortunately, it seems it was a freak occurrence, as I've yet to see a return of that strange, trowel-wielding, dirt-loving, sod-ripping woman who took over my body for a few weeks. She was something. She even saved all the little tags from the plants, imagining she'd hole punch, catalogue, and use them as reference for proper care. She was mistaken.
Yesterday I spent most of the day outside - there's still a couple of patches of snow left (ugh, for real) so I didn't get too involved, instead opting to take a mental inventory of projects. I also raked a bit and crushed my big toe while dumping the wheelbarrow. Don't even ask me how - I couldn't tell you. I'm just not built for doing such dirty, lifty things. I almost tipped the whole damn thing (which is nearly as tall as me when upright, by the way) down the hill in our woods, so I suppose my toe saved the day.
Despite my disdain for most things dirt, I'm finding lately that I'm willing to play in it a little bit more - mmm...well, it's early...I will revisit that thought. I realized yesterday that maybe instead of running around from area to area wanting everything done NOW, I should try to focus on one area or project at a time. The downside to this, of course, is that when I'm finally finished, I'll look up and the weeds on the other side of the yard will be big enough to eat me. And the prune boy will be hiding behind them, smiling.
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