The Garden Post

So, the first week in January I get my Gurney's seed catalog. I peruse the pages, drooling over the lovely vegetables (flowers aren't really worth growing other than ones that will come up every year without any intervention from me, in my opinion). I want these vegetables, I love eating these vegetables. So I plan a garden, things I like to eat. I get the seeds, plan on when I'm going to rototill (back and hand breaking job), plant the seeds, all nice and organized like. But then it comes, the hard part, the annoying part. Weeding and watering. Why can't these things come up by themselves? Why aren't they strong enough to force the weeds out? Why can't it just rain a bit every day to take care of that? I like the harvesting and preserving parts too. So after years of not getting the garden weeded enough(picture tall stands of weeds where you can't even tell what I've planted there), and barely getting it watered enough, I've decided. Why should I do it? I don't enjoy that part enough and I don't get all the produce I want that way anyway. Why not buy from a farmer's market? Why not? Duh! We have them even in this tiny town. There are other people that like to do the watering and weeding parts. Let them! It's worth it to me to pay a little more for the produce that I don't have to do all that work for. Totally worth it. Of course, another little thought niggling the back of my brain is that I much prefer animals and could trade the garden people for meat or milk or something for their lovely vegetables. (Don't tell me an animal is just as much or more work as a garden. I know that. But vegetables don't complain audibly when you don't feed and water them, so it's easier to remember the animals).