Today is another nice day out, and I didn’t want to waste it. Unlike the 7th, when I had a functional migraine — where I could still do some chores around the house, but each one was exhausting, and I had to stay in the low light inside, because my eyes & brain couldn’t cope with the bright sun outside. But this day I awoke at 1 a.m. — 3 hours before the alarm would sound — so I expected to feel like crap and be terribly tired. Instead, I felt almost human and wide awake, so I ventured outside with Goddard, my VP (Vibrant Pet.) He did his business, while I attended to the garden business.
I felt Biden-ish, cleaning up the mess left by last season’s withering vegetation and the moldy leaves shed by the neighbor’s skyscraper maple tree. First up, untangling all those constricting twist ties that held together the jury-rigged constructs left by the Former Gardener (me), to support the ungrateful tomatoes that stayed stubbornly green all summer long. Except for the Sweet Million grape tomato plant, which did produce fruits for summer salads, but like Operation Warp Speed, fell far short of the promised bounty — it was more like Sweet Hundred — but still plenty to feed a family of two.
Desiccated and hardened stems and vines, old programs developed by varietals of tomato and peppers, got yanked out and tossed into the garden bin, along with the mountain of now-brittle maple leaves and odd bits of green plants that I scrutinized and decided, conservatively, were probably weeds.
The still somewhat useful ties I saved for the coming season, along with the branches trimmed from the honeysuckle bush — that became an f*ing TREE! — and used to build last year’s Rube Goldberg plant support systems. 2021 (and a New Administration) will see a refreshed infrastructure being built. Also an influx of new funding for the replacement of seeds and seedlings that didn’t flourish as was expected by the Former Gardener, who proved to be less than competent for the job, in spite of the COVID pandemic. (I’m blaming COVID for the summer squash that produced a dozen blooms but only one squash. It was mystifying to watch the other blooms and their vines suddenly wither away. Even if I’d had a My Pillow, I’d still lay awake many hours trying to figure out what went wrong.)
So it’s a New Day in America, at least in my little half acre of it, and after the predicted rains are done this weekend, I intend next to use a hoe and root out all the little green conservatives that will be popping out all over, thumbing what passes for plant noses at my efforts to restore peace and order in The Backyard Garden.