PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I spend a lot of my time these days out in my garden cheering on my flowers and vegetables.  It seems to be working better than usual this summer but I better not take all the credit – I’m thinking Mother Nature considers her rain and heat units have more of an effect than my positive thoughts.  I say let her take the credit – no one wants her in a bad mood.

Mind you, I do spend some significant time muttering bad things about her under my breath while I’m out there.  It’s not all happy thoughts and pixie dust while I wander up and down the rows of beans.  A good portion of my garden time is spent in hand-to-hand combat with portulaca, redroot pigweed, and lamb’s quarter, to name a few.  (There are many others that I don’t know the name of, but dislike every bit as much.)  While I understand Mother Nature loves all of her plants equally, I wish she would grow her riff-raff somewhere far away from my peas and carrots.

You see, I have this misbegotten and unrealistic vision of a magazine worthy garden.  In my head I picture perfect rows of perfect germination in perfect plant density.  Also, the rows are perfectly straight, but that’s more my husband’s dream than my own.  My seeding equipment doesn’t have GPS like his does.

I also envision that the only plants growing out there should be the ones I planted.  I require that my vegetables enjoy sovereignty over the domain I have given them.  It is only their green growth that I want to see; that, and clean, weed-free black dirt between the rows.  There should not be any thistles or dandelions.  Wayward canola and flax spill-over from the grain bins is not allowed.  Quack grass and foxtail are banned as well. 

I am not winning.

But I do try.  I dedicate a few hours each day to eliminating the enemy.  I start when it’s still coolish, when the horse and deer flies show up I know it’s time to quit.  This morning the flies were running a little late; I make have baked a few brain cells. 

Maybe that’s what gave birth to this episode of self examination I’ve been wrestling with for the rest of the day.  It has occurred to me that I am prejudiced.  I try to segregate the plants that I want from the plants that I don’t want.  I banish (or try to) the unwanted, going to the extreme of maiming or killing them every chance I get.  Not because they are not strong and healthy.  Not because they are not edible or nutritious (they say portulaca and lamb’s quarter are both).  Not because they can’t be pretty in their own way.  No, the only reason they have been placed on a hit list is because I have appointed myself judge and jury over them.  In this time of social equality and awareness this feels a little awkward, I can tell you.

It’s mostly about my pride.  I love the way the rows look when the weeds are all gone.  It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to claim this implausible and unbalanced microworld I have created at the cost of so many undesirables.

It’s a fleeting thing though.  Gardening season is about to move on to the next stage – harvesting.  There are only so many hours to the day and picking a preserving will now take over.  Any weeds that have dodged death so far will now shift into high seed-forming gear and I will be right back where I started from next spring.  Mother Nature wins again.