Stoke up the fire, grab a mug of cocoa,
your seed catalogs and your loved ones, for as sure as Christmas brings
visions of Sugarplums, late winter brings visions of the Perfect Garden.
Over the course
of the last 25 years, I have gardened both sides of the Mason-Dixon line,
and I have compiled a Gardener's List of Untruths, for those of us who
have followed, to the letter, the advice of the "Master Gardeners", come up
with nothing to serve our families but dust and weevils, and had our
neighbors turn us in for suspected toxic waste storage (HEY, that's my
garden!). Keep in mind that I have personally tested every Untruth, and
while I will never claim to be a Good Gardener, I am comfortable in my
role as Blackthumb, Defender of Inept Gardeners, Protector of Those Who
Keep Trying.
Untruth #1: Rent
the Rototiller and simply push it along, smiling and humming a settlers'
tune as it turns your land into premium, glorious, farmland.
Truth: Pay
someone with a real tractor to till up your garden plot. If you want to
experience the effects of Rototilling on your body, have someone work you
over with a sack of wet sand, then jump off of your garage roof. Naked. Into brambles.
Untruth #2: Your
veggies will look just like the picture in the catalog.
Truth: Actually,
they WILL look just like the pictures, they just don't tell you that the
pictures are life-size.
Untruth #3:
Newspaper makes excellent mulch.
Truth: Newspaper
looks like litter in your garden, because it IS litter in your garden.
The best mulch I ever used was stall innards from the goat pen,
wheel-barrowed directly from pen to garden and dumped between rows.
If you have no goats (I can help you with that), the thick black plastic
the garden store sells is a good alternative that keeps out weeds and
doesn't look awful, although some folks, like our Editor, are opposed to
putting anything in the garden that won't break down rapidly. Last
year's hay works well too, the flakes are about the right size to fit
between rows.
Untruth #4: Fish
heads make excellent fertilizer.
Truth: Although legend has it that the Indians planted a fish head with
every kernel of corn, the reality is that this is a myth perpetuated by
generations of skunks looking for an easy meal.
Untruth #5: Natural pest control works just as well as chemical pest
control.
Truth: There's nothing like a good dose of poison to kill bugs.
Since my children had a habit of eating straight from the garden, I always
go chemical-free, and assume the "one for me, two for nature" attitude.
However, using beer for slugs does work - taken internally by the gardener
in a large enough dose to obliterate any thought of slugs.
Untruth #6: Mothballs/aluminum pie tins/sweaty shirts/Tabasco
sauce/gunshots will deter mammalian pests.
Truth: The instant your sweet corn is ready to pick, some sort of silent
Corn Alarm sounds, and nothing will keep the raccoons away. I
witnessed the mid-day destruction of my sweet corn from 20 feet away,
yelling, waving my arms, jumping up and down and lobbing every lift-able
object at the masked darlings. They totally ignored the Crazy Woman
at the edge of the garden (you would think rabies would've been a concern,
I was certainly foaming at the mouth), bent a stalk, opened an ear, took 3
or 4 bites, then moved onto the next one, effectively ruining the entire
crop and breaking my heart simultaneously. There is nothing on earth
as delicious as homegrown sweet corn, harvested and cooked within minutes,
slathered with real butter. If I ever have the courage to plant
sweet corn again, I will fence that area and turn a big doggie loose in it
two weeks before harvest.
