My latest obsession

Originally published February 11, 2009

I do actually have two children. It’s just that Sander’s the one who’s always demanding to be photographed...

He’s hiding here in a post hole, playing “Prairie dog,” in an ugly, barren stretch of clay and rock that I am determined to turn into a garden.

Three years ago, when we first moved in, I planted a garden. Then the deer ate it. So I planted another one, put up a better fence. Deer ate that one, too. Last year, same thing.

So this year I’m getting serious.

I have offered on Craig’s List one month’s worth of dinners to anyone who would come and put up a deer-proof fence.

I warned that the ground was solid rock, and that you’d need a jackhammer to dig a post hole, and that I really will suffer a nervous breakdown if I have one more tomato plant nibbled to the ground the night before the tomatoes are ripe.

Enter Sam. He’s young, good-looking, digs fence post holes for a living, and he’s hungry. He works all day and has no clue how to cook. He goes home exhausted and falls asleep hungry because he’s too tired to fix anything.

A month’s worth of free dinners sounds just about right.

So last week he showed up with a HUGE truck that hammered right into the soil, drilled four feet down into the solid rock, and there you have it. A real post hole, ready for a real fence.

Also via Craig’s List, I have a farmer named David coming on Sunday to till the entire area with his tractor. Same deal -- he’ll get month’s worth of dinners, too.  Sam will come back and put up the fence once the tilling is done, and I will have a real, honest-to-God, garden, not a half-assed patch of dirt with a hose.

I have seeds starting inside for tomatoes, tomatillos and beans. I have lots more to plant once I can put them right into the ground.

I am WAY too excited about this. I’m sending the husband off to get a trailer full of compost tomorrow, and I can’t wait for the compost to get here. Who knew I’d be excited about compost?

I’m really excited about the fantasy garden in my head, though -- the one where I can go out and pick what’s for dinner every night by what’s in season and what’s ripe, full of berry bushes and tomatoes and squash and beans. 

In reality, I don’t really eat squash, and weeding a garden this big is going to be a huge pain in the butt.

No matter. I’ll be satisfied if anything grows that I can eat before Bambi does.

I no longer think deer are cute.