- The best and worst decision of the year
- A battleground
Usage Example: “I’m looking for a powerful chemical that will instantly kill giant spiders in my vegetable garden, but will still allow me to say that the vegetables are organic… Do you have anything like that?”
Background: The home vegetable garden is a battleground. The choice to grow vegetables at home is both a peace treaty and a declaration of war on nature. The home gardener must work with nature by watering and nurturing plants, and work against nature by waging war on weeds, insects and animals.
At first, a home gardener may naively plant a few vegetables, water them, and sit back, assuming that they will have a crop of beautiful vegetables in a few weeks. However, it doesn’t take long for these rookies to realize that nature hates them, and will do anything that it can to destroy their precious little weekend project. Gardeners generally follow this pattern:
- Decide to plant an organic garden after seeing beautiful vegetables at the farmers market and on Facebook
- Prepare the ground through backbreaking labor
- Purchase and plant vegetables
- Water seeds and plants
- Weed
- Realize that an animal is eating the plants
- Purchase and set up a fence
- Weed
- Realize that an animal is still eating the plants
- Purchase liquid animal repellents
- Weed
- Battle a giant spider
- Weed
- Search the internet to identify strange looking insects
- Search the internet to figure out what is making those tiny holes in your leaves
- Purchase an organic insect repellent
- Weed
- Search the internet to figure out why your leaves are yellow
- Purchase and install an extra-large fence
- Purchase and use chemical insect repellents that actually work
- Weed
- Battle a giant spider
- Harvest three small tomatoes and five misshapen squash
- Decide that your Facebook friends are liars
- Vow to never plant a vegetable garden again… But those vegetables did taste really good…maybe just one more try…
And, just like the addicts that they are, gardeners keep fighting the battle year after year – hoping that the next year won’t contain huge spiders.
