Say "No" to Weed

When we bought our house in September of 2009, I indulged in what I imagine to be very typical first-time homebuyer fantasies. I imagined myself whipping up dramatic meals that would wow our friends and feature foreign dishes with names I had to practice to pronounce. I envisioned A. and I gazing lovingly at each other as we painted rooms and laid new tile, basking in pride of ownership. In this new house, all manner of kick-assness would take place, I was certain.

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None of these fantasies--however cavernously disconnected from my actual personality and activities of daily living--could hold a candle to the massive storytelling I engaged in about what I would do with our yard. I experience what only can be described as true delusions of grandeur in this arena. It was a classic rookie mistake. I mean, we had raised beds, for fuck’s sake. (I am confident that, with the notable exception of major mental illness, nothing has contributed as much to the current homeowner epidemic of magical thinking and delusional behavior as the raised bed.) Not only did we have raised beds (RBs), but six of them were even fenced in a special little thought-distortion-fueling “side garden” area, all separate-like and cute and just waiting for something impressive to be planted! Plus, we had a whole bunch of weird rocky/yardy-type space that we could build into even more raised beds! Holy fucking shit! This garden was going to kill it! We would be like farmers!

I should mention that I felt uniquely qualified for this massive undertaking for one simple, inarguable reason: I am from Vermont. We Vermonters—and I mean native Vermonters, not you goddamned flatlanders with condos in Stowe or pansy-ass 2nd generation outtah-staytahs—are a rugged breed. We pride ourselves on doing difficult, unpleasant things that “regular” people shun and on taking on enormous projects that require back-breaking labor and large, unwieldy tools. We are not a people who “hire it done.” We shovel, dig, chop, haul, and plow our own shit, thank you mis-tah. And even though the earth is only warm enough to grow things for about five minutes a year, we fucking love to garden. Anyone who doubts this truth should swing by for a visit in August and just try to get out someone’s house without a few paper bags full of zucchini.

It should be noted here that a) I have not lived in Vermont since 1999 and b) I have only two distinct memories of actually doing anything garden-related. In one, my mom made me pick cucumbers. It was uneventful. In the other, my grandmother made me dig up potatoes and a worm got on me and I lost my shit completely and ran to the house and wouldn’t come out.

Somehow, in my new homeowner pink cloud, I was alarmed by neither the notable lack of volunteerism nor the dearth of evidence that I possess any gardening prowess or stick-to-it-iveness in these memories. No big deal, apparently.

For a couple of weeks, life was good. I tilled. I built up some new beds. I bought lots of seeds and planted them in precisely-spaced rows which I labeled with wooden kabob sticks pierced through the seed packages, just like my mom. I bought a bunch of flowers at Home Depot that I didn’t know the names of and transferred them to a bed and then posted pictures of them all over Facebook like I had birthed them. I made an involved routine of watering all my beds morning and night and gave A. daily updates like, “Did you see the green beans are poking up?” and “I think the hydrangea might be getting a new blossom!” These first few weeks were high times in my grandiose mind. High times indeed.

But I had forgotten about something. I had forgotten completely—or maybe never even really known—about weeds.

It started so innocuous and cute, one little baby weed just popping up to remind me that gardening takes sustained attention and effort. You don’t get to just sit on your ass and reap the bounty, you have to earn it. I plucked that first weed and patted myself on the back. I had just weeded! I just did extra labor. I practically toiled! Look at that dedication! I really am like a farmer!

A few days later, I was losing count of the weeds, who were looking less like cute little baby plants and a lot more like something out of one of A.’s creepy horror flicks, and they were multiplying like Gremlins in a swimming pool. They were decidedly infiltrating my RBs, and my self-satisfied plucking had given way to long bouts of focused and desperate pilaging. I started asking around and surfing the web for tricks to reduce the workload, but my anxiety grew when I learned that all of my options were pretty shitty. Basically, I could a) spend inordinate amounts of time weeding my extensive network of RBs, which I was already doing; b) douse the fuckers in Round-Up; or c) do nothing and let the weeds take over. A. and I talked it over and decided we were committed to keeping our property chemical-free and concerned about our dog’s health and blah blah blah no Round-Up. For OCD reasons alone I ruled out avoidance. So, I dug in my heels, picked up one of those foamy kneeling pads (so that’s what those are for), and prepared to earn my gardening stripes the honest way.

Needless to say, my summer basically went like this:

For the first time in my life, I understood two concepts that had eluded me: Condo living has some serious perks, and organic gardeners are bat-shit crazy.