Are You a Crazed Gardener?
September 10th, 2013
I spent a morning last week with Lower Swatara Twp. uber-gardener Joe Mateer, whom I’m going to write about in an upcoming Patriot-News/Pennlive garden column.
Joe Mateer inspecting his ‘Mr. Stripey’ tomatoes… before they go in a marked bag, of course.
Joe told me he liked a column I wrote a while back in which I used the term “crazed gardeners” to refer to the, ah, well, more “avid” colleagues who enjoy working the soil.
“It seems logical that the next step would be to define whether you qualify as a CGer,” Joe said.
To save me the trouble, this retired middle-school principal came up with a qualifying exam, which I’m pretty sure is one he passed.
See if you match up with any of these:
1.) You buy a 20-kilowatt generator to protect your 1,000-watt pump that runs the koi pond.
2.) You spend more on mulch than you do on groceries.
3.) You have one edger to do your sidewalk, another to edge your curb, still another to edge your trees and a fourth for backup.
4.) You put your tomatoes in marked bags so you can decide which variety tastes best.
5.) You think it’s a tossup which creature is the most vile in the history of the Earth – a velociraptor or the groundhog.
6.) The fence you constructed around your garden to keep out the groundhog resembles San Quentin.
7.) You think that constructing a 54-foot labyrinth built with 45 tons of stone in your backyard is a great idea because it means 20 minutes less mowing.
8.) You use a Kubota to plant your tulips.
9.) You paint your garden hose holders the same color as the shutters on your house.
10.) Your favorite Christmas gift is next year’s garden catalogs.
11.) You mix mushroom soil with your mulch to protect the house from artillery fungus.
12.) And, the first thing you do when you get the paper is look for George Weigel’s column instead of the sports page.
Ha! Nice list, Joe. I think anyone who relates to even three or four of those is probably crazed.
Any others to add to the list? We won’t judge you… really.