I’m pretty organized, a trait that I’ve found to be largely
helpful in life. Being organized means that I am, by nature, a
little distressed by messy jumbles of stuff. Fortunately, I can
generally keep these messes down to a minimum.
I’m pretty organized, a trait that I’ve found to be largely helpful in life. Being organized means that I am, by nature, a little distressed by messy jumbles of stuff. Fortunately, I can generally keep these messes down to a minimum.
I thought, when setting out on this gardening endeavor, that I would be able to do just that. I thought my plants were evenly spaced and planted far enough apart that I would be able to keep track of each one, monitoring its progress, easily harvesting its fruit and pulling weeds before they got too big.
Yet again, I was wrong. The tomatoes, which I had so carefully lined up and placed in cages specifically designed to keep them upright, have overpowered these cages. They’ve grown together, fallen over, spread along the path and otherwise stopped being seven separate tomato plants and have become one giant tomato bush.
Part of the beauty of being organized is being able to find what you need without launching a major search. While I have no trouble finding the tomato bush, finding the tomatoes on the plants involves a lot of digging through a tangle of leaves and branches.
The monstrous tomato bush has also managed to overtake the basil, which I actually forgot about because I couldn’t see the little basil plants for a while. They’re still going, although they’ve gotten spindly, struggling to reach the light from under the tomato plants. The tomato bush has also crowded out one of my pepper plants. These tomatoes really have no regard for their neighbors.
Honeydew is another such inconsiderate plant. When we plopped the sad-looking little honeydew into the ground, it didn’t look much like it would live, let alone actually grow over other plants. But we’ve done something right, and the plant is covered in flowers, little baby honeydews and has spread a couple feet in either direction. While spreading, it has managed to roll right over our strawberries onto the onions. It’s coming out onto the path, and I’m a little concerned that if my dog stands still too long, it might start growing over her.
I do feel a little vindicated, as the honeydew has grown up the stalks of the squash plant, which itself set off a takeover attack on surrounding plants. It’s now battling the zucchini for dominion, and the zucchini is losing.
In short, there is no order among or delineation between my plants. They haven’t kept to their little areas, and everything has become the messy jumble I sought to avoid. And yes, I must admit, I do find the lack of organization a little distressing, but I’m learning to live with it, mainly because there’s just no way I’m moving my plants now.
The one good thing about all this chaos is that the actual vegetables have crowded out any weed that might have considered sprouting had there been room, making less work for me. And that may be the true goal of organization.
