Wednesday, June 24

Okay, so there are some days that I don't love my garden.

I know I said I love my garden oh so much, and I do.

Most of the time.

But some days, like yesterday, it makes me want to cry. All the weeds, everywhere. Taking over. Spreading like carpet across my garden beds. Pushing up from underneath the flagstone. Mixing in with the cosmos like wolves in sheep costumes. Strangling the dahlias that are still trying to push up through the soil. Mingling with the gravel in the driveway.

Weeds. Everywhere.

I hate it.

I guess there are days that pulling weeds is somewhat meditative. But other days, not so much. I just get frustrated with the endless nature of the task. Pull today, back tomorrow.

And the chive-like things continue to torture me. I worked for so many hours in the early spring, digging and digging, trying to get all the roots out. I even sprained my damn wrist doing it. And guess what? They're all coming back. Slowly but surely. I'd like to strangle the tenant who planted those damn things.

The ants make me want to cry too. Little black ants. Big black ants. Red ants. Black and red ants. All over. Swarming my greens. Chewing holes in all the leaves of all the plants.

Damn ants.

I'm starting to see baby grasshoppers everywhere too which makes me think the grasshopper infestation is going to be back later this summer.

And the fact that when I don't water for 2 days, everything just about falls flat. All my sunflowers fall over. Some of my seeds croaked. The pansies plaster themselves to the dirt. Even the heat and drought tolerant plants get all sad looking. But in Santa Fe, one is only supposed to water 3 days a week and I try to be good about keeping to it. So I water Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Which makes the wait until the following Tuesday tough on the garden. Especially now that the heat is back.

June was unseasonably cool and the garden delighted in it. But now we are back to our regularly scheduled heat.

And the damn herbs that require "full sun" don't actually like full sun because they are not so perky anymore either.

So yeah, I get frustrated. I feel like I do all this work so the garden can look good for two weeks and then it all just goes to hell with the heat. And the weeds.

But let's face it, I would probably be really sad if I didn't plant a garden at all. And I'll probably be really happy in late August and September when we have lovely tomatoes and peppers and all the zinnias that made it are growing tall and blooming. Then it's all worth it.

But I still don't like weeds. Or ants. Or grasshoppers.

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