Dreams of garden help month pass

Only a few more days and the longest month of the year will finally be over. I know it only has 28 days this year, but those days have been cold and often dreary. Now that it is almost history, I can concentrate on all the enticing pictures in the plant catalogs.
If I were to indulge in every plant I desire, my husband’s dream of never mowing the lawn again would come true as there would be no room for grass. Of course, if I bought every plant I wanted there wouldn’t be any money to pay the bills, nor would there be time to care for anything without roots.
I am thinking about expanding the garden beyond the usual tomatoes, peppers, onions and cucumbers. I am even considering planting green beans again. Last year the beans provided more food for the bugs than they did for us. That probably would not have happened if I had just sprinkled a bit of poison on them to deter the bugs. I resorted to buying fresh beans from the farmers’ market.
The farmers’ market is also where I get my sweet corn every summer. Many years ago I swore I would never plant sweet corn again after the raccoons chomped every ear and destroyed the entire crop. It is much easier to let somebody else deal with the raccoons and purchase a couple of ears from local growers. However, there is a new variety of sweet corn that is advertised as being suitable for growing in pots. Maybe I could control the hungry critters’ access if the plants were in a smaller area. It is something to think about.
When I was growing up, we had a huge garden and I absolutely hated working in it. It was hot, sweaty, hard work. These days, my garden is much, much smaller. I don’t own a hoe, nor do I want one.
Weeds are pulled by hand or left to live out their weedy lives. I grow just enough to provide a few fresh vegetables for my husband and me. Much of our produce doesn’t make it into the house as it is eaten straight off the plant. I don’t can, as I hate food that comes from jars.
Yet, there are those pictures of beautiful vegetables in the catalog. I have visions of planting potatoes for the first time. I know full well that I would not do the required upkeep so that the plants would produce enough potatoes to get us through the winter. There are eggplants, squash, onions and more kinds of tomatoes and peppers than I ever knew existed. All of them are begging me to buy them.
Then there are the flowers. New varieties, new colors and shapes abound. They are all screaming, “Take me home! I could be yours! Your house could look as good as these photographs.” I know that the pictures lie. I have visited enough nurseries and display gardens to realize that the plants in the pictures will never sit up and pose at my house.
Sure, they may look great for an instant or so, but not for long. And the following year they will either multiply like crazy and take over, like the lilies of the valley try to do or they will disappear altogether.
Or else they will leap out of their allotted spaces and grow wherever they please. That is how we got the sunflowers alongside the driveway the last few years.
Then there is the catalog of fruit trees. I have visions of cherries, peaches and more, just waiting to be picked. They are all telling me how easy they are to grow. I can almost taste the fruit. Again, I know myself well enough to know I would never give the trees the care they deserve.
So I will content myself with dreaming about gardens that could be. All I have to do is succumb to the temptation of the advertisements in the catalogs.
Dreaming about sunny days spent cutting beautiful flowers and picking tasty fruits and vegetables is preferable to waiting for dreary February to finally be replaced by temperamental March.
But I have already spent my birthday money on books so the plants on the pages will have to live in someone else’s garden. And I will continue to dream of what could be.[[In-content Ad]]