The Veggie Garden and the Grim Reaper

Nubby Carrots

I finally got around to planting my vegetable garden this weekend.  Or, as I refer to it, the raccoon buffet.  For the past couple of years I have gotten increasingly organized with the garden.  I plan out what I'm going to plant and where it's going to go.  I jot down lessons and tips I learned from the previous year and make changes the next year.  For example, last year taught me that I should not plant the onions next to the beans because the beans block the sun and cause the little onion plants to mold.  I also learned to place the carrot seeds instead of sprinkling them even though it's really tempting to just sprinkle them because the seeds are like tiny specks of dust.  When you sprinkle the carrot seeds they grow way too close together and you end up with tiny little carrot nubs.

Little Lucy Scarecrow
protected our garden bravely.

Last year I had a big tray of seedlings that I started weeks before it was time to plant outdoors.  Everything was labeled.  I even made little signs for the garden and put up a scarecrow.  It was a perfectly lovely little garden, even though the raccoons dug up my corn to eat the peat pots they started in.  We had fresh, home-grown potatoes and yummy peas and beans.  Even the kids ate their veggies when they got to pick them fresh from the garden.  It was great.

Dr. Two Brains and his ray gun.

This year... not so much.  I started some seeds in the little "green house" on my porch, but soon forgot all about them.  They didn't get watered and shriveled up into little brown twigs.  A couple of the more hearty plants survived my lack of attention, so I stuck them in the ground.  We planted some corn, beans, peas, onions, carrots and parsnips. Yeah, parsnips.  The kids picked that one out because of an episode of Word Girl where Dr. Two Brains uses parsnips to power his ray gun to turn gold into potato salad and potato salad into cheese.  It's complicated.

I also finally planted the grape vine that my Mom and Dad gave me for Mother's Day and some pumpkin seeds that were labeled "Jack-Be-Little Pumpkins."  How could I pass that one up?

I'm not enthusiastic about this year's garden.  Not only because I got a late start, but because the morning after planting, I found many little nose and paw prints in neat little rows right where all the seeds used to be buried.  Now, I can't really tell how much those stinking critters actually ate until things start sprouting... on not.  Either way, I'm feeling kind of bummed out.

Also, I saw a street sweeper slowly pass my house this morning and ever since I've had this little ditty stuck in my head.



I fear my veggie garden is dancing with the Reaper.