For many years, I tried my best to raise a productive vegetable garden. The idea of growing, picking, then eating vegetables that did not come from the grocery store held a powerful allure. There were some victories – lots of cherry tomatoes and bell peppers some years. I even had a few years with okra harvests. And there was plenty of fresh basil.
We weren’t quite living off the land, but it was gratifying to eat the produce I had grown. Overall, though, it felt like a constant battle against the forces of nature. Since I didn’t want to use insecticides or other chemicals, my plants were constantly vulnerable.
One year, I decided to expand the garden and grow a small patch of corn. So, I prepared a plot about twelve feet square and nursed my first corn crop into being. It did great, growing to about my shoulders. The silk strands were starting to sprout out of the baby ears, and I was feeling like Farmer Joe of the Maryland suburbs. Then, we went away for a week at the beach.
As soon, as we returned – even before I unpacked the car – I went around to the backyard to check on the garden. To my absolute shock, I found each of the corn stalks bent over and dying. The entire patch was terminal! What the hell had happened? I never did figure it out and just assumed that I was not destined to grow corn in my backyard.
Each year, it seemed like one calamity or another would befall the garden. If it wasn’t aphids or worms or slugs, it was a groundhog or deer eating the produce that was meant for my table. Farmer Joe turned into Befuddled Joe, just waiting for the next gardening disaster to emerge. This took its debilitating toll on my ego and patience. Year by year, I slowly decreased the size of the vegetable garden and started concentrating on flowers instead.
There were, however, some very dependable items that I continued to plant and harvest. Chief among these were springtime scallions and leaf lettuce. It seemed like these early season crops were not as susceptible to disaster as were the summer crops. It did my pride good to each year successfully grow and consume those two salad components.
After many years of this fruitful production, the good times ended abruptly. It was just like any other spring until it wasn’t. The lettuce patch had been healthy and was approaching the point at which I could start to harvest the leaves. Then one day, I noticed that a portion of the patch appeared to have stopped growing. A few days later, I was alarmed to see that almost half of the patch was in dire shape. Most of the leaves were gone. Just like with the corn of several years prior, I wondered what the hell had happened.
I literally stood there for several minutes, just staring dumbfounded at the ruined section and trying to figure it out. This was a new one on me, and my mind went toward all types of possibilities. My eyes scanned from the obliterated section to the still-vibrant and growing area. What could explain this?
Then I noticed something shiny in the healthy area beaming up through the green leaves. It was actually two shiny somethings that came into focus as two bright eyes on the face of a statue-still bunny rabbit! There was the answer, staring me right in the face. I could almost hear it asking, “What’s up, doc?”
I guess if I had been a real farmer dependent on the crops for my livelihood and sustenance, I would have scared off the bunny or done something more extreme. Instead, I laughed and told the rabbit to enjoy the lettuce. Unlike that creature, I could go down to Wegmans or Giant to buy my own supply. The obvious lesson here is that sometimes the answer to a confusing or puzzling situation may be right there in front of us if we but take the time to look at it closely and think it through. The other lesson is that having more than one person look at a problem situation can lead to a quicker diagnosis than if one goes solo. If I had mentioned to Barbara that something odd was happening with the lettuce when I first noticed it, I am sure that she would have immediately suspected a rabbit. However, I am not sure what I would have done with that info!