[gardeners] Planning Ahead

Liz Albrook (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 3 Nov 1997 12:48:57 +0000 

I got some news today that sort of knocked the wind out of my sails.  
I'm going to be having abdominal surgery and I thought I was going to 
be doing this around Jan - Feb.  Today I found out that it's probably 
going to be done in 6 - 7 months.  (No, I'm not dying and it's not 
something I really want to talk about.)  From a gardening point of 
view this is disasterous.  That would put me having surgery in the 
May - June region -- right when the veggie garden gets planted.

One of the problems, as you all know, is the much awaited January 
Catalog Arrival Festival.  It's the January CAF that gets me through 
most of the winter what with the debating, planning, laying out the 
gardens a few dozen times, more debating, planning and finally 
ordering.  Even after the ordering is done there's the laying out the 
beds several times over to help get you through those gray days.  I 
look forward to the CAF and post-CAF times as one of the high points 
of the gardening season.

Now I'm in a quandry.  Should I order seeds and hope?  What will 
happen to my gardens when I can't tend them during the summer growing 
season?  My spousal unit is definitely not a gardener.  While he'll 
happily pick a tomato (guess I'll plant them) he's such a non-violent 
person that he'd never pull a weed -- he might kill it.  (Yeah, I 
thought he was just lazy too until he explained this life and death 
and violence thing to me.)  The problem is that he might not find the 
tomatoes with all the weeds growing.  

And my flower beds -- what am I going to do when I can't get out 
there and pull weeds?  Do you guys know what bindweed can do in one 
uncontrolled year?  Letting bindweed run wild in your flower bed is 
akin to letting kudzu go next to your house -- you might never find 
your flowers again.  I've never found a thickness of mulch that was 
thick enough to stop bindweed.  Well, that's not true.  It doesn't 
grow under our house so I'd have to say that a 20 foot deep pile of 
much won't have too much bindweed growing in it.

Help, help, help!  I've got to plan ahead.  Tell me what to do.
And please, don't tell me not to panic.  Panic is all that's keeping 
me from going nuts.

Liz