The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume LV

That didn't last long.

My pumpkin plants are gone. For little vines, they had a fun run, sprouting into beautiful flowers and winding across the lawn for a bit. But they are no match for the Florida sun and a farmer like me who isn't so great at tending crops.

It was just too hot. They needed way more water than I thought. I kept drowning them, but they kept shriveling back, and now, they are gone.

Oh well. They were just seeds. I can always try again. I might have known better. I planted too early for Florida. Maybe waiting until late summer would have been just what they needed.

But last October, when I carved up a pumpkin for Halloween, I somehow became mesmerized by the idea of seeing what the seeds would do if I planted them. I thought, you know what? The Jack O'Lantern is right. We need to plant some seeds in the garden and grow our own pumpkins. Why mess with store-bought ones when we can grow our own? Forget about the farmers and the infrastructure in place. No need to support that if you don't have to.

Of course, now we know what really happened.

I didn't properly weed the garden to begin with. I did a pretty good job, but I couldn't get all the wiregrass out of there. I plugged away, coaxed by the thought of bigger and better pumpkins that I could have for free. But nothing is free. Not even freedom. There is a price.

I bought some healthy potting soil infused with nutrients, and at first, everything was going good. More seeds sprouted than I had imagined. They were exceptionally fertile, and they were all jammed into two pots. They got so big I thought they needed some freedom. So, I transplanted them all over the yard. Some by the south fence, some by the garage, but most stayed right there in the garden. They made friends with the wiregrass, who also love sunshine, but don't need much water.

Pumpkins need lots of water. They were insatiable. Keeping them moisturized was costly. The worst part was that the other plants nearby got too soaked for their own good. The garden was not happy.

The gardenia bush wasn't so upset. It is the biggest plant in there. But the aloe on the west end got buried in vines and weeds. It wasn't just wiregrass, sandspur started sprouting up, too, protected by the pumpkin vine. Then crabgrass got in there. The stargazer lilies fared pretty well, since they are dormant through the summer, they are hanging in there, but the poor little peanut flowers were getting buried. It was a mess.

The idea of bringing pumpkin into the garden sounded fun at first. I mean, look at pumpkins. They are big and round and that ochre orange color reminiscent of Home Depot and prison jumpsuits. If pumpkins had their own TV shows they would probably do something like, I don't know, try and show off their mad negotiating skills and try and tell other vegetables what to do. They would all be celebrity vegetables. I haven't really fleshed out the concept, but you know, something harmless and silly. Nobody could ever take a pumpkin seriously for anything.

This Pumpkin plant in my garden had ideas. Crazy ideas to be sure, but the weeds loved them.

More sunshine. "It's easy to get more sunshine. You just get the clouds out of the way and there you have it. Sunshine."

More water. "We need more rain. I am going to get the clouds back. They want to come back because of me. They left because I told them to, but they want to come back because of me. Clouds love me."

Cooler night temperatures. "These higher temperatures from the global warming, I am telling you, if the clouds were doing their jobs and raining at night instead of during the day when we should have prime sunshine, everything would be a lot better, and it is now, because I am here, and I alone make things better."

The Pumpkin really promised a lot with no way to deliver. No matter what the pumpkin said, no matter how nutty, the weeds loved it.

"You know what we need? Ammonia. You know, if we had ammonia, we wouldn't have to worry about fertilizer. How beautiful would that be?"

The Pumpkin had no idea that ammonia kills everything.

"Build a wall," the Pumpkin said. "This way you can keep the peanut flowers and the aloe away from what we have going on here with me and the big gardenia. The gardenia loves me, I mean look at me, I am a great Pumpkin - everybody loves me."

Not quite true. Even though little bricks separated parts of the garden, the wiregrass and the other weeds went everywhere the pumpkin went, and they did not just want water, they wanted everything. The desert rose and the Madagascar palm have their own pots, but with all the watering, the situation was messing with their roots and the pumpkin started reaching into their pots and a few weeds got in, too. They had to be plucked out individually. I wondered, was it really worth it to have pumpkins at the expense of all the other plants?

The Pumpkin certainly thought so. The weeds were in full agreement, and they started to spread. Their roots went in and choked everyone. Pretty soon you could barely see the aloe. The Pumpkin said, "The aloe is fine. It's on the other side of the wall. If it gets over here all it is going to do is mess everything up. We have a good thing going on here. We don't need aloe, bringing - what? What does aloe do? You can't eat aloe!"

As a matter of fact you can.

"We don't need aloe over here. They're bringing bees, and lizards, and they are just a mess. They just want water. You should just get rid of the aloe." said the Pumpkin. "Everything will be great if you just get rid of the aloe. And the peanut grass. I mean, they're not even real peanuts. You can't eat flowers."

Yes, you can. In fact, most of the common vegetables we eat, like broccoli, cauliflower, and artichokes are flowers.

The Pumpkin persisted. "Well, flowers are not fruit. They might be vegetables, but they are not fruit. Or roots, don't forget roots. Roots are good, too. You should get some potatoes and carrots, but plant them over there, with the aloe, so they don't use our water. And don't plant any trees that make shade, because we need the sunshine."

Who is we? I asked.

"Me and my friends the weeds."

The pumpkin, as aggressive as it was, identified with the weeds, but none of them were very bright. The pumpkin only made friends with the weeds to choke out the plants who needed the same resources and made vague promises of a beautiful garden it would never be able to deliver. The pumpkin knew all along that it would choke out the weeds once they did all the dirty work. But the pumpkin had no idea how many of them would show up and how dangerous they actually were. They almost destroyed the entire garden.

Pumpkins are fun to look at and carve up and delicious in a pie, but not so smart when it comes to trusting them with a garden and looking after other plants. They think they know what they are doing, (the one in my garden claimed to be a "very stable genius") but pumpkins behave erratically, spreading vines everywhere, they have no self-control, and they definitely can't do anything to stop weeds from sprouting and doing whatever they want, that is for sure.

When they are out there, growing by themselves in a pumpkin patch, that's fine, but they don't belong in a communal garden, and they certainly should not be in charge.

The Pumpkin wanted to make my garden great again when it was already great to begin with.

Lesson learned.

Thanks for reading.

If you want to read something really scary CLICK HERE.