Lazarus Come Forth!!

For those who know me well, they are fully aware that gardening is not my forte. A dear friend had once lovingly grown me a plant from a seed and presented it to me for my birthday. I guess she figured that since it had sentimental value I could somehow keep it alive. I decided that what it needed was foster care so a wonderful woman at my church "plant sat" it for me for few weeks until it was lush, gorgeous and thriving. I optimistically took over the care of the plant and it was dead within two weeks.

That being said I have planted a garden this year. My idea of planting a garden is plant it, let nature run its course and eat whatever happens to survive. I do not weed, I rarely water it and I put forth very little effort. Last year I was lucky enough to get a bumper crop of potatoes, a bunch of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers I never knew what to do with and 2 zucchinis. Not bad for pretty close to no effort whatsoever. Plus, snakes like my garden so I don't like putting my hands too close to it.

This year, however, my lack of effort is evident in that nothing but the zucchini plants are doing anything. No lettuce, no broccoli, no cucumbers and no jalapenos because little critters ate everything down to stalks. My dried out tomato plants have about 5 small green tomatoes on them. There may be hope for the potatoes and onions, but I don't really know how to harvest them since they blend in now with the giant weeds. I don't know what to pull and what not to anymore.

In some spur of the moment urge I decided to water the garden tonight. With the hose and sprinkler thing-a-ma-jiggy that I saw The Husband use to water the sod we had gotten. "Hey, why not?" I thought. Plus, Aunt Extreme Kitchen Makeover had brought over more tomato plants that were dying a slow death in a box next to my garage. Maybe if I got the dirt wet enough I could actually plant them in the ground.

I couldn't really figure out how to use the sprinkler thing, it would not stay in one place so I stood there holding it (I did see my neighbor looking over with a puzzled look on her face). But, while I was holding it looking at the carnage I realized the only thing that was really benefiting from my watering were the weeds. So, in true ZSA ZSA from Green Acres fashion, I dug in as best as I could while trying to protect my cell phone from the sprinkler that kept hitting me as I pulled the carpet of weeds. I decided if Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead and He said that we will do even greater works than this, well I guess maybe there was hope for my little vegetable cemetery. It was like Extreme Gardening X Games trying to avoid the sprinkler and keep The Dog from running after all the rabbits 3 yards over while I mucked around in my sparkly flip flops praying that a snake was not hiding under the mammoth zucchini leaves. I know there is some kind of spiritual message in all this, but I'm too tired to think that hard about it.

I ended up getting about half of it weeded, I was pretty much soaked and my flip flops may not make it. Tomorrow (maybe) I will actually plant the new tomato plants which I at least watered. I am hoping and praying that my toil was not in vain and I have the motivation to "get 'er done". Stay tuned for Woman vs. Nature....