Every year the same scene is played out down at the hardware store by the serious gardeners in town. One group – always wanting to be first at everything, especially gardening – insists on planting their tomato seeds as early in May as possible. They even pay extra for “hardy” seeds and then buy things like frost covers for their precious seedlings. Next, they’ll buy any other garden gadget they come across that might save the life of their early tomato plants.
The other group is made up of more traditional gardeners, who read almanacs and insist that here in Maine you never know when we might have a killing frost, even in a month like May. They argue that in Maine you shouldn’t put any seeds in the ground until after the traditional Memorial Day weekend. These people feel that no matter how unpredictable Mother Nature may be in northern New England, not even she would dare spring a killing frost on us that late in the season. In years we do get a killing frost in June, these gardeners insist it’s just the exception that proves the rule.
Over the years, I’ve put both gardening theories into practice. Some years I’d plant early in May and other years I decided to plant late. And, I must admit that the results were pretty consistent – my garden failed no matter when I planted.
For help I’d watch the gardening shows on television and started listening to a popular garden show on the radio. I got a lot of great ideas and gardening tips, but my garden didn’t improve enough to notice.
Sometimes I thought my failure resulted from not spending enough money on all those fancy tools. So, when I’d see a television ad for something like the garden claw or the tilling weasel, I’d go right out and get one. Sometimes I’d buy two just for good measure.
While at the store I’d always see a few other garden gizmos I thought my garden might need, and I’d scoop them all up and take them all to the checkout counter. I brought hundreds of expensive tools and clever gadgets back home to add to my extensive collection.
One year I read that the way to have a good garden was to have “mounds” running up one side your garden and down the other. So, I went out and bought a few hundred feet of railroad ties and spent the better part of a week laying them down in squares and filling them with loam. I can’t say the mounds did much good, but building them sure kept me busy and out of mischief for a while.
This year I got the usual seed catalogs in the mail and paged through most of them, looking at all the fancy tools available for the new growing season. And, when I’d go into the store every morning for my coffee, I’d listen once again to the arguments for and against early and late May planting. I listened but I didn’t participate.
Over the winter, I sat down and figured out how much I spent on last year’s garden. According to those figures, my tomatoes cost me about $52 a piece.
So, now I’ve decided to go green – take all that money I’d normally spend on my garden and book Mother and me on a cruise instead.
John McDonald is the author of “A Moose and a Lobster Walk into a Bar,” “Down the road a piece,” “The Maine Dictionary” and “Nothin’ but Puffins.” Contact him at Mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.
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