Squashed Elation

Caption: Have at it. It's all yours now!

 

Every "Watched Pot" has an ending, it's conclusion, and it's denouement (loosely translated,the tying up of loose pumpkin vines).

If you are going to have a "Watched Pot" you must endure frustration, you must tolerate patience, you must keep you eye on the prize no matter how distant it's placed. And I can do all that. But what I couldn't handle then, and likely could not suffer today....is COLOSSAL INDIGNITY.

To understand the immensity of my embarassment, read on.

               Middle Lane Compelling Growth Also

                                      by  Paul Reinertson circa 1983

 

There is great physical relief following day TEN. But there are still significant challenges ahead. There is of course the concern of identifying the plants and timing their harvest before they go to seed. I have NEVER been able to catch lettuce in time. It just doesn’t look like it does in the market, or on the package for that matter.

 

There is also the on-going decision making about how much to thin each row. How many sprouts are too many sprouts. More than once I have thinned some species right out of existence.

 

There is a perpetual guessing game on how much longer it will be before the tomatoes turn from green to red. [I always forget yellow comes in between.]

 

Harvest, in general, is always a challenge. I don’t think I’ve ever beaten the birds to the corn. I typically get a few cucumbers picked before the squirrels strike.

 

My two foot long carrots and baseball sized radishes are a source of pride, but barely edible.

 

An early freeze typically does its own harvest on the cantelope that I shouldn’t be trying to grow in Zone ‘B’ on the cusp with ‘A’ anyway.

 

By fall the garden, which had once been naked earth, is now a short jungle. Everything has grown into a solid mass. Cucumber vines have wrapped themselves around tomatoes. The tail of a radish comes up connected to a carrot two rows down. For a short while I imagine myself in the middle of a Mendelian experiment. Just a short, very short while.

 

In late fall the jungle has turned into a brown ugly network of drooping stalks and vines. The sad moment of having to chop the rotting growth up into mulch has arrived.

 

Holding back a tear in my eye, I survey the area of my seven month long “Watched Pot.”

 

As always I toss out this observation: “I wonder if it’s worth it? I wonder if I’ll do it again next year?”

 

Typically I know the answer before I ask the question. It’s a compulsion, my very own “Watched Pot.”

 

But something a little different happens this year. Backyard gardeners are a giving lot. We usually bag up our squash and try to spread it around the neighborhood. Well this year my squash crop is kind of impressive. This will be the year I’ve got the guts to share my harvest with Master Gardener Ray Bigyard (not his real name) at the end of the block.

So I proudly put five of my foot long squashes in a grocery bag and proudly begin the trek. I meet Ray as he is coming out the side gate of his yard, and he too is carrying a grocery bag.

 

Ispeak first.

“Here Ray, these are for you.”

 

He peeks inside and says, “pretty nice. What a coincidence? I just picked these for you.”

 

I accept the gift and stare into the bag. STARING back at me are two of the most beautifully shaped squashes I’ve ever seen. And they are perfect fall colors. And they are both the size of Louisville Sluggers (BIG BASEBALL BATS).

 

It was my first and last case of severe SQUASH ENVY.

 

That, my friends, is why, in my case? “That POT don’t get WATCHED no more.”

That’s slang for ‘WOW!”

I mean they were a good three feet long.

 

I’ve heard people say watching “PAINT DRY” can be interesting?