Rotten Tomatoes

Okay. Fine. So the backyard vegetable garden was pretty much a complete bust. Yeah, I know I was all excited about it. Cocky even. This was how the conversation with the husband went last Spring:

JARVIS: Why are you spending so much time and money on the garden? Last year all you did was feed the rabbit and deer. We didn't even get a tomato out of it.

ME: That's not true! We got lots of tomatoes. And this year, I'm adding the deer fence. Plus, with this amazing mulch I got, we're going to have so many vegetables, I probably won't have to go to the grocery store for weeks on end.

JARVIS: Sure. It worked out to about $32 a carrot last year. How much was all that mulch anyway? I really don't understand why you had to buy all of that.

ME: (Impervious to his small-mindedness, I ignored him. He doesn't appreciate the value of working your own land, of teaching your children where their food comes from, of tasting juicy tomatoes that weren't shipped from Chili and coated with who-know-what sort of pesticides.)

So, fine. He was right, dammit. All of you women out there (or at least the three who are reading this) must know how much it pains me to put that in writing.

It probably did average about $32 a carrot this year, too. Well, it would have if I'd even grown carrots. Instead we had, yes, a single, enormous zucchini (too tough to eat), a few eggplants (which I'm not sure what to do with) and many, many rotten tomatoes. I don't really think it was my fault, exactly. My fellow local gardeners were all complaining of the same thing. It was all the blasted rain in June. And I have a sneaking suspicion that the deer were still getting in. Something was eating all the zucchini blossoms.

I did, however, grow a fair amount of arugula and basil. Can't complain about that. Every time I used an herb over the summer, I waved it in front of Jarv's face and reminded him that they're $3 a bunch at the store. Probably even $4.50 at Whole Foods! He was pleased as punch. At this rate, I'll have amortized down the cost of the garden by.... August, 2011.

But, hey, I've already bounced back. Can't get one lousy crop get me down. Here's Plan B: I'm ripping out all of the dead vegetable plants and filling the plot with hundreds of bulbs to make a nice little cutting garden in the spring. It will be spectacular! The house will be filled with daffodils and tulips. I'm sure Jarv will understand it's a very worthwhile investment. Foolproof. I'm confident it won't average out to more than $12 a flower.

$20 at the most.