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The Ghouls In My Garden

© Barbara M. Martin

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The Ghouls in My Garden.

Every gardener keeps a special itemized list of Bad Things. These Bad Things are particular to each garden, so no two lists are exactly alike although we may share items. For example, I may list slugs and deer and bindweed while you may list Japanese beetles, slugs and black spot. We most likely all list drought with a capital D.

No matter our personal list, we certainly empathize and commiserate heartily enough about the trials and errors of gardening. Some of us generously offer suggestions and solutions, both successful and less so. And our tales of woe and disaster, our tribulations and consternations are equaled only by those of the fisherman whose quarry has got away. And our success stories take on mammoth proportions and the fruits of our labors are always akin to the fabulous bean stalks belonging to that fellow Jack -- at least as best we can recall. But no matter, we love it.

We love it most of the time, except when we enter that blessed deep level of exhausted sleep that only the true gardener may know, the sleep brought on by pure exhaustion, exhaustion brought on by endless battles with the choking wild kudzu or the eye-straining search for the last of the endless cucumber beetles or the patience wrested from us in the stabbing of countless wily iris borers. And from that sleep in the middle of the night snug in our beds sprawled in the reckless abandon of the truly bone weary, we are then only to be woken sharply by the dreaded nightmares. Those bad dreams of bad things known only to the true gardener.

Allow me to share some of my worst with you. Please tell me that you too have experienced such fears and foibles. And maybe, with your help, I won't be so afraid next time. And by golly, I'm gonna win this one! So with new resolve once again I regain some measure of composure, roll over and go back to sleep.

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