OCD Gardener

Have you ever been late to work because you stopped to pull weeds? chase rabbits out of the garden?  stopped to emergency-water a wilting plant?

Do you view Mother Nature as your nemesis?

Do you refer to your efforts as “combat gardening?

You, my friend, are an OCD Gardener.

Symptoms: Generally unkempt appearance, including, but not not limited to:

• Constant/frequent sunburn.
• Farmer’s tan.
• More freckles.
• Every sunburn is because you couldn’t be bothered to stop digging long enough to coat yourself with SPF 75, or your hands were too dirty to apply sunblock.
• Perpetually cracked hands.
• No nails/dirty nails.
• Hat hair.
• Back aches.

But there’s more…

1. Missing a meal because you weren’t done yet…
2. Missing an appointment because you weren’t wearing a watch and didn’t notice the time.
3. Starting out watering and ending up dividing/relocating/mulching a few plants.
4. Intending to divide one plant and ending up 6 hours later re-arranging a 6 by 30 foot section of your yard.
5. Moving 180 cubic yards of dirt without a wheelbarrow.
6. Throwing away extra seedlings is like throwing away bad pictures of your kids: you can’t do it.
7. You’ve used bags/boxes/buckets/tubs/jugs/Tupperware to hold seedlings or divided plants.
8. Spending more on plants than groceries.
9. Spending more on plants than clothes.
10. Spending more time outside than in.
11. Your garden is cleaner than your house.
12. You’d rather be dirty than clean.
13. You lose yourself for hours in ANY garden department.
14. Spending 6 hours in a nursery.

My Challenges:

My garden is located in a rural area, at 6600 feet, officially zone 5 (but I usually plan on zone 4).  I have four 4 by 8 raised beds and 5 border gardens around the house.  I fight a relatively short season, vicious winds, hailstorms, drought, deer, grasshoppers, raccoons, skunks, a really smart dog that likes tomatoes and the shade of the hosta patch, birds, blight, and time.  Did I mention that I am not really a handy-man type (close to completely inept), so my solutions tend to be simplistic, and occasionally desperate.  Purpose:  defeat the elements.