My garden is a Sportcombi

Christmas is over and I’ve killed and eaten the fatted calf (22 pounds of juicy, golden tryptophan) the presents are put away, the tree is down, and, bloated and lethargic I turn my thoughts and mind happily to spring. Oh, I know spring is months away and I have piles of snow to push before the long winter of my discontent is over but sweetness is coming in little packages via my friendly government postal worker – you know, the same one that’s about to become my doctor. Catalog after glorious catalog fill my mailbox with tempting garden offerings that make me pine for warm weather and look with longing at the spot where we had the worst garden in our history last year. It’s like a veritable potpourri of garden goodness erupting from the little metal box at the end of our driveway and for a few moments makes me believe that this year there will be no weeds and that the clay will have magically turned to loam by spring.

These garden people know what they’re doing, stuffing my mailbox full of these magazines at exactly the right moment. I’ve just come off the frenetic high of Christmas spree spending and I’ve still got a bit of the post-Christmas blues, which, as we all know can only be cured by more spending. I truly can’t afford to buy more stuff but this time the presents are all for me and besides is spending money on plants really, actual, gratuitous spending? Isn’t it rather necessity spending? How can it be wrong to spend money on something so beautiful and that gives so much pleasure for such a long time? How can it be wrong if it feels so right?

I can hear the voice telling me not to walk towards the light but all I can say in a trance like voice is “it’s sooooo pretty.” It's like sending a Wine of the Month club magazine to an alcoholic or a cleaning magazine to someone with OCD. They really should keep these magazines behind the counter with a brown wrapper over the cover.

The plants are exposed in their photoshopped, full color, glory with not a hint of leaf curl or blight on any page. Nothing in real life could ever look like that, without a wrinkle or spot. Still, I study the vitals of the exotic plants in hopes that they fit within my zone. They are smooth beauties and all the other, more acceptable plants leave me a bit cold. I trace and retrace the zone lines and try to convince myself that I have my own private microclimate, in Idaho, where it is possible to grow quince and citrus in abundance. I am a zone six at best but I lie and convince myself that I’m a five. It’s a little like spinning that small wheel on the edge of the scale to make yourself five pounds lighter. Hey, the scale says it so it must be true! Sure it’s a lie but it’s a lily white one. Besides, who will know if I plant a five in a six?

My wife is way too practical for any of this tomfoolery. She wants to buy hearty vegetables like carrots and peas, beans and onions, things we can blanch and freeze and store and use throughout the long winter. She is the worker and I am the artist, the one that wants to experience immediately so I can store them in ME and live off the memory. I want things that are beautiful and forbidden and immediate. I want to try the Spiral Veronica Cauliflower that looks like a beautiful fractal, Saturn Peaches that look like centrifugal force has spun them flat, giant pumpkins, giant watermelons and Giant Oxheart and Mr. Stripey tomatoes. I want to pick vegetables like I pick cars, for their beauty and impracticality. I don’t want my garden to look like a Dodge Dynasty I want it to look sexy and quirky like a Saab Sportcombi. Alas I have nothing like it in my driveway and will probably have nothing like it in my garden again. Still, I can dream. Hey, that Goji Berry on page 63 looks mighty tempting. Look, it even says it’s hearty to zone five!