Plants, Stolen Watermelons and Rocks

Original Run Date: June 10, 2010

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

My theory that plants were not created for people to eat has received some opposition.  I have been told that growing and possibly eating vegetables is good for me. If this past week is any indication, neither the growing or the eating of plants is beneficial to my health.  The facts do not substantiate their theory. For the past month I have been tilling, planting, watering and weeding multicolored growing things under the theory that my bride Management likes eating them and because I don’t want my grand-brat to think food (even inedible compost like vegetables) comes from stores.

I have planted seeds that are supposed to develop into little red roots, pointy orange roots and fat round brown roots. There are little green bushy things that are supposed to grow red, green and yellow peppers when any fool knows pepper comes in cans and is black.

There are viney things with big leaves that are claimed to produce cantaloupes, cucumbers and watermelons. Watermelons are edible but as Mark Twain once noted, “I have purchased watermelons and I have acquired them by stealth and any fool knows which one tastes the best.” Watermelons are meant to be stolen. I don’t think it is legal to grow your own.

If you happen to be one of those rogues who will come steal my watermelons now that you know I have them, I really can’t complain. It will just be another case of cosmic adjustment. Id quot circumiret, circumveniat. (What goes around comes around.)

Just sneak down the drive without waking up the dogs. The watermelons are on the left. You will find them within easy shotgun range from my window. I said I won’t complain and I won’t. On the other hand, I will shoot. Id quot circumiret, circumveniat.

If my past experience with growing things is any indication, within a month or so I will have a garden filled with brown plants surrounded by an attractive carpet of lush green weeds. Years ago in my pre-Management days, a lady friend gave me a staghorn fern. “You can’t kill it,” she said. “They thrive on neglect and abuse. Just give it something to drink every week or two and it will do fine.”

After giving me a half a dozen ferns one at a time and taking the corpses away, she gave up. It may have been my fault. I found out later they are tropical plants. That means I should have been giving them drinks in coconut shells with the little umbrellas. It may be that good old Virginia moonshine was more than they could stand.

In any case, this production of producing produce is dangerous. Last week I was watering the garden, which I am told I am supposed to do on a regular basis. This is more difficult than just giving them an occasional drink. In the process I tripped on one of the rocks, which I have also been told need to be plucked out of the dirt so they don’t annoy the plants.

Somehow the rocks don’t seem to affect any of the plants I haven’t planted. If a plant grows wild it apparently doesn’t mind a few rocks. Sounds sort of like some of those parties I heard about when I was younger. The wilder it was the more it rocked, or was it the other way around?

So I stepped back, tripped on the removed rocks and fell. If I hadn’t landed on my head, I might have been seriously injured. As it was I just took a little nap. After waking up I staggered inside and lay down until the sky (or was it the bed?) quit spinning.

There is something odd going on here. I haven’t watched the ceiling spin since the 1970’s. Do you think that it is the growing of plants that makes the bed spin or was it something in the water?