Guilty computering
By Mr.e

If you consider today’s date and the title of this ill-timed missive, you may stumble upon the half-buried conclusion that I am not the world’s most responsible gardener.

Ok, so it stings just a little bit. The part where I admit to myself and the surrounding neighbors that I am not really as avid about my garden as it appeared earlier last spring. That was when I started planting stuff way before it was time just because I was so damned excited; and destroyed who knows how many dollars worth of seedlings in an environment that provided even less than the minimum requirements to sustain early plant life.

Clear thought clouded by colorful visions of that first harvest bounty: every imaginable vegetable known to me; as I plotted to fill my plot with pots, rows, trellises, raised boxes and the likes. And I did it too.

Even put up a scarecrow. At one point earlier this fall I actually had to rescue him from being strangled by the profusion of squash creepers that seemed to multiply as per some frightening science fiction script. Finally I gave up and just put up that wide yellow tape around the areas that the squash creature had appropriated. Let the onions fend for themselves.

All that mucking about in the good soil went ahead as planned and the results were mighty impressive too, for a first time dirt freak like me.

The beets were the sweetest, half of the carrot crop was sacrificed at the alter of organic technique and shared with the worm priests, the peas didn’t last long enough, the corn rose above expectation and the beans never seemed to stop.

The tomatoes showed the same promise producing countless fruit, only to succumb to a fiendish blight. Not being the overly wise on the tomato front, I didn’t know enough not to throw the diseased fruit into the compost. OOPS. Next years dirt may well author some horrors still unimaginable…

And then I went and got myself this here computer. Might just as well have slapped on a pair of blinkers, handcuffs and chained myself to a desk. Mind you, it appears that I’m just as tied to this seat, desk and screen as if I were shackled, so I suppose the hardware would have been superfluous.

Then I moved the office right beside the kitchen for reasons of space and quick access in case the urge to cook prodded me in the belly.

I never even considered the garden in all of that. The delightful daily if at times backbreaking chore now safely shoved to the back of my mind or lost in some file, who knows where on the hard drive, now firmly replaced by the daily computering habits of a cyber citizen.

As I sit here pecking out these words, I can sense the garden behind me. It looms with jobs undone; preparations for winter left for when? I dare not look out there for fear of being overwhelmed by it all. It seems just too much.

Too much to even pry myself away from the screen for just a day. A day? A whole day? I couldn’t bear it now. Feels like withdrawal too. Yuk.

Every day I am nagged by the certainty that I’ve got to finish the gardening cycle and put the garden to rest for the winter months. It’s got to be done. Things look a fright out there, one lone tomato plant … I don’t even know what you call it when plants are left standing even after all usefulness. Ugly comes to mind, dead is another word.

…got…to…clean……the mess up!
And every time I sit down at this terminal to do whatever chores I’ve become slave to, I feel the guilt. It’s real, yet so far I’ve been able to keep the lid on it. Perhaps I’ll get out there tomorrow and get it done, then again …

Must finish the current web project. And devise new ones.