I woke in the night and scattered amongst your being, 10000 ladybugs, eager to do your bidding....not a one wanted to stay with you to complete their task.
I showered you with diatomaceous earth, being told the prehistoric microcrystalline dust would destroy, organically, the exoskeletons of any and all insects feasting on your roots. I marveled as the white clouds fell gently onto your body. Little did I know that the shredding this powder would exact upon the bugs crawling along your foundation...would shred my lung tissue as well. "Shoulda worn a mask",I heard someone say, over the sounds of my wheezing.
Hours were spent reading on how to coax you into proliferating, reproducing, and creating, only to bear the secret shame and awkward exchanging of glances as attempted to hand pollinate you, by brush, from bloom to bloom. I only had myself to blame. My protective netting I built for you? Yes it kept out lizards and squirrels. Come to find out, it also kept out bees and butterflies and their sultry dragging of pollen to blossom, to blossom, to blossom. (I'll give you that one. My bad.)
At the sound of distant thunder, I rolled not into a lover, but into the night, shrieking, with bags and blankets to cover your tender growth. It hailed not once and I ultimately stunted your growth by creating an overly humid and swelteringly hot prison when I forgot to remove the protective plastic bubble the next day....I smothered you with love.
I rubbed oils into your flesh to protect you from the villainous pillbugs. Alas, had I only read directions, I would have known that exposure to sun would cause the neem oil to become toxic. All your blossoms burned and dropped to the ground....like my lofty expectations of delicate summer squash fritters.
I rejoiced in your potato vines, imagining the praise I would garner when I served au gratin. "From my garden" I would say, feigning humility and modesty, half-heartedly waving away compliments. As I harvested your tuberous masses, your green outer flesh gave me pause. Only after I researched did I realize I had planted the wrong type of potato. (F.Y.I. you cannot, despite what you thought you remembered from 5th grade, just plant a potato from the grocery store into the ground) Your skin had gone "to pot"...I had unknowingly let you rot in the ground. Had I served you upon a platter, not only would you have been exceedingly bitter, but apparently mildly toxic to humans, domestic animals, and possibly fish. No adoring glances or jealous whispers over you were to be had after all. Only the echo of a loved one telling me, "what the hell is wrong with you? I almost ate that"
You gave me one, large, ruby red tomato...plump....almost bawdy with rosy perfection. I coveted you as you grew, counting down the days until you ripened. Watching your from my window. I had such plans for us. When the day had finally come,I plucked you from your root. I turned you in my palm....squeezing your tender supple flesh...and then, like a stone, my heart sank. The side of you hidden from me for 53 days as you grew on the vine was being completely devoured by a worm...still half lodged in your core...feasting. Not one who is prone to violence, I , red faced, dug the inch long offender from your skin with a stick, and cursing,
flung him the length of the yard...sending him soaring into his great beyond. He hit the fence with a shockingly satisfying splat. See what you do to me? You make me crazy....I'm not myself when I'm with you.
And so it is with a heavy heart and broken spirit that today,I harvest your last offerings you so stubbornly brought forth. These dozen tomatoes the size of peas. Sprigs of rosemary covered in a strange scaly mildew that I can't find an explanation for online. A handful of onions, stunted and deformed, the size and smell of a single clove of garlic...tasting of dirt and paper grocery bags. Three or four green beans too tough to snap. Parsley...yellow and bitter. You gave me no squash...only male squash blossoms. A phenomenon that, according to internet, message boards, books, and family members, has NEVER happened before and technically should be impossible. Garden...you've broken my back, and my heart...(and I'm pretty sure you're responsible for spreading a blight virus onto my 7 year old peach tree that used to bear fruit every summer but is now just a disturbing gray skeleton that provides a safe haven for wasps, yellow jackets, and my dogs' obsessive urination. But I can't prove it)
You can't be forgiven. You won't be forgiven. You are nothing but a disappointment. I gave you love, you gave me a wasteland. I long for the winter to watch you go dormant, as I sit and ponder, looking at you through cold winter windows, "when shall I dig again?"
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