Digging in the Dirt...or, "It's as Hot as Singapore Out There!"

Dirt squelching in my Crocs (plastic shoes ARE washable), slapping mosquitoes, lugging 2 cu. ft. bags of soil, sorting through seeds, potting up peppers and tomatoes--that's what life here in my own real-life Farmville is all about.

I am late putting in my "garden" this year due to my absence, but putting it in I am (in between naps and lying down with ice-packs on my forehead and lumbar region). I always forget how much work it is to grow stuff. First, the poison ivy has to be defoliated. Then, the weeds and volunteers have to be cleared out of the beds. Soil has to be turned and rocks thrown out and clods broken up.

Despite hat, sunglasses, insect repellent, gloves (yes, GLOVES, Mert!) I always manage to stagger back into the house bathed in perspiration reminiscent of Singapore flop-sweat, splashed with mud and scratching my various bites and skin rashes. And yet I go out and do it again. I must be out of my mind.

I have 4 zucchinis, 4 yellow crooknecks, and a rhubarb in the ground. I have a dozen each of tomatoes and peppers in pots, along with 2 big pots of bush pickling cukes and 3 eggplant. I am almost done with preparing the beds for carrots, beets, potatoes, onions and beans. I decided this year that peas were too much work for too little produce--and it's too hot already for peas anyway, as well as broccoli and cauliflower.

I suppose I could just shlep down to the Farmer's Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but it is so satisfying to step out onto the porch and pick my own salads and herbs during the summer months. Not to mention the joy of picking blackberries in the rain (the only time it's comfortable enough to engage in such an activity), or hoping-against-hope that I will be the one to harvest the plums and apples this year instead of the deer.

Come August, I will be drowning in squash, tired of tomatoes, and giving peppers and beans away. This pleases me.