I really, really want to be good at gardening. The planting part is easy. Next when little plants germinate and poke their green heads out of the ground there is a huge feeling that something wonderful and amazing just happened. Then comes the growing part. Things happen then. Strange, gross, frustrating things.
We have blueberry bushes. The thing about blueberry bushes is that they take a few years to really get going and produce fruit. Within that time there won't be a single bird in your backyard.
You will know when your bushes are going to explode with berries, because the year before that you'll notice one or two birds. You will proceed to Home Depot and buy a scary looking owl to keep the birds away. It will work.
The following year your bushes will literally have dozens, even hundreds of green blueberries just waiting for the sun to ripen then. But the birds will come, and they will land on your owl. And they will poop on it. They will steal your blueberries. All of them.
If it's not the birds, then it is bugs. I don't even know if "bugs" is the correct term, because half of the time I cannot even identify the alien looking creatures crawling out (yes, out) of the food I am growing. Imagine my excitement when tomatoes actually start growing and butternut squash spring off of the vine. And then I find this on a squash:
It doesn't matter what it is. It's gross. Nothing within 12 inches of where this was found will be eaten. I may even (once I get the nerve up to put my hands back over there) pull up the whole plant. Why? Because it's gross. And we don't eat Gross for dinner.
Hi, I'm Abby. And I garden at Publix.
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Labels: gardening, zone 7
