Call me Mr. Greenthumb(ish)

A couple of weeks ago I was up in Northern California visiting relatives when I got talking to my aunt Joan about her garden this year. I then shared my triumphs and failures in the world of gardening. I’m wondering if some of you have had similar experiences.

My first foray into gardening didn’t come until the mid-2000s while living in Hawaii. My then-wife and I had bought a house on about a third of an acre, so we had room for a garden. You might be thinking, “It’s Hawaii, everything grows there with ease.” Kind of. Where we lived, on the Big Island, didn’t get much more annual rain than does Boulder City. And since it’s made up of primarily volcanic matter, the soil isn’t very forgiving.

I prepped an area about 300 square feet. As a typical guy, I didn’t read up on the best ways to garden but rather went at it with an all-or-nothing mentality. One row I poured an entire packet of lettuce seeds. By the way, when have you ever seen a lettuce seed or gotten one stuck between your teeth? Who knew?

I did the next row all cucumbers, and another row of miscellaneous peppers. Well, as luck would have it, they all started coming up. I think we ended up with 23 heads of lettuce ready to be plucked out of the ground all at the same time. Needless to say, we had a lot of chef salads that month, all with about a pound of cucumbers on each one. The cucumbers did the same as the lettuce and all came up at once and fast. That was when I learned that you plant some seeds, wait two weeks, plants some more and so on.

The next year I paced myself with the lettuce and cucumbers but thanks to my success, I saw myself as a gentleman gardener ready for my first blue ribbon at the county fair. This time around I decided to try growing my favorite vegetable, corn. Like the previous year, I planted an entire row of corn seed at the same time. It was glorious. They started growing and eventually were taller than me. But I quickly noticed a pattern. Each stalk was growing just one ear of corn. I then realized why corn is grown in fields, where they can pollinate one another, unlike my one row of corn that was side-by-side like a police line-up.

When it was time to pick the corn, I think I got eight ears. We cooked them up and my wife and step-kids were great sports as we all four acted as though it was the best tasting corn ever. To be honest, it was….ehh. And because of the time and money put into it, each ear was probably about $40 apiece.

My next attempt at gardening was while living in Sedona. The house I rented had a deck in the back and a semi-enclosed fenced area about 20 feet long and about six feet wide. Enough for a garden.

I decided to try a few different things. I had a few pepper plants, two tomatoes and butternut squash, which I had never really eaten but now I love.

The peppers and tomatoes were doing well. Good enough to make homemade salsa with. I was pretty proud of that. But my pride and joy and the apple of my eye were my butternut squashes. Not only were they growing but they were perfect, as any proud parent would say. I had a couple that were probably nearly a foot long and almost ready to harvest. Harvest sounds much more professional than does “pick.”

But then it happened.

I woke up one night around 2 a.m. to a lot of noise. Being half asleep, I thought someone was trying to break in. So, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my baseball bat ready for a fight. Since my bedroom window was open, I quickly realized it was not a person but rather a lot of scurrying and grunting. I flipped the porch lights on and there was a small pack of javelina that had made its way into my garden. While they resemble wild pigs, they are actually part of the peccary family. They have very strong jaws, can be very aggressive but are fairly blind. And worse yet, they’re fans of butternut squash.

I was able to scare them away and once I had, I grabbed my flashlight to see the damage. Well, my blue-ribbon squash was turned into a participation ribbon as they had taken two big bites out of both. This is not something Martha Stewart ever shared on her show… I assume.

Thinking they’d get another quick snack, the pack came back about two hours later but I heard them and scared them off before any additional damage could be done.

The next day I bought a big piece of plywood, which prevented access under the deck to the garden. Like clockwork, around 2 a.m. that evening they returned but this time all I heard was grunting and banging as the near-blind hooligans were head-butting the plywood barrier. They were not happy but the smile on my face made up for their unhappiness. Thankfully, more squash grew and this story does have a happy ending.

So, whether you grow herbs in a planter, or have a big garden, enjoy. There is something about being able to grow your own food, as long as it doesn’t have teeth marks.