Tragedy Stalks the Garden (stalks, get it?)

It isn't all fun'n'vegetables here in Ruburbia.

What bizarre genetic miscoding is making some of the tomatoes mutate into double and triple weirdnesses? Check this out:



One tomato has a little nose. I don't have the heart to put googly-eyes on him, it seems too cruel.

I had to discard four green tomatoes yesterday due to bug damage and some kind of brown disaster that made them sag and gush. There are dead June Bugs all over the place, and a googling results in info like this and this. So I'm looking forward to spending college fund money on a spray bottle of Spectracide and battling the problem all winter.

The ants are moving in closer and closer. I've tried a syrup of borax and sugar and water; corn meal, which is supposed to puff up in their tummies; and soapy ammonia and water. I really don't want to use some brain-damaging petrochemical-based non-organic whozit spray, but those indomitable little beasts are nasty. I want to know how they know to bite me instead of my shoe. They won't chew on my flipflops, but they'll swarm up to my ankles and arms before I realize they're even there. Try reaching into a tangle of bean leaves and find out the ants are picnicking underneath. And of course they are most active in the early morning and evening, which is when I want to be active too, not at the height of noon under a blazing sun.

But ant bites are nothin' compared to stepping on goatheads. Also known as tribulus terrestris, or puncture weed, they can flatten tires and draw blood (personal experience). Some knuckleheads think they have aphrodisic qualities and Bulgarian weightlifters reportedly used them to win the gold medal at the '88 Olympics. In Africa they were dipped in poison and strewn in the path of one's enemy.

Tribulus terrestris

So guess what we have so far produced the most of in our garden? Any Bulgarian weightlifters want to harvest them for me? Because, you'll never guess, swarming around the base of each sinister little sprout are a million red ants.

I told my mom I pulled at least twenty spikes from the bottom of my shoes every time I went out there, and then I thought I might be exaggerating so I sat down and counted as I pulled. One, two...fifty...sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two! IN ONE SOLE! Only fifty-nine in the other.

I took a picture just the day-before-yesterday, when you'd think I would have collected most of them after all those trips to the garden. There's at least 26 on this one sole.

Disgusting, huh? And the stickers look pretty ugly too.

Believe me, I don't dress up out there as it is soooo dusty when you're trying to mow and all that dirt blows in your face and down your shirt and makes mud. 'Cause you're sweating. And ladies aren't supposed to sweat. They are also not supposed to cuss, but you try stepping on a goatshead while being eaten by ants while June Bugs and a fireball sun decimate your garden and the only creature benefitting from your toil seems to be the neighborhood cats, who are using the garden for a sandbox.

I didn't even mention that one row of beans completely dried up, yellow, dead, papery and mummified. Mummification, of course, brings me back to June Bugs, which are of the scarab family, which were revered by the ancient Egyptians who saw them as a symbol of resurrection. Except for me that means I get to deal with the grubs all winter and watch 'em bust out next Spring. How did the ancestors ever do it? People who protest against the use of pesticides, herbicides, and radiation of food should just grow their own garden and experience the feeling of some little bug eating the food you've sweated over. Or go sit on a goatshead.

Maybe I should get into seafood farming 'cause I'm feeling so crabby.