Let’s play a game. It’s called Guess that Lawn. Take a look at these pictures I took of lawns in my neighborhood and guess which one is mine.

Hmm… Is this Hanna’s lawn?

Nope. Not this lawn.

Is this Hanna’s lawn?

Nope, Not this lawn either.

Could this be Hanna’s lawn?

Not even close.

How about this lawn? Could this be Hanna’s lawn?

Angngngng. This is not Hanna’s lawn either.

Surely, Hanna would have a lawn like this.

Nope, wrong again.

This lawn has got to be Hanna’s lawn.

Wring, wrang, wrong. Not Hanna’s lawn.

Maybe this lawn?

Yeah, right. Hanna just wishes. This one is Hanna’s super gardening neighbor, Kristen.

Oh… Um… Gosh… This is the last one.
Is this what Hanna’s lawn looks like? Have I mentioned that the neighbors have sent around a petition to have me lynched on the grounds that I don’t fit in well with the whole suburban lawn mindset?

Come one! Come all! It’s the Hanna’s Garden Oddities Show! Two pence a visitor and we promise that you will see sights that will make your very tailbone shudder.

What you see before you is a freak of nature that is so awful… so terrible… that gardeners the world ’round would shudder to see it. We will tell you that women faint of constitution and anyone pregnant or suffering from a heart condition should best avert their eyes now.

Behold, I present to you the beast known as The Dandelion Hydra.

*Shock* *Gasp* *Horror*

Ladies and gentleman, contain your panic. If you will just calm yourself, we can hope to keep this monstrosity contained.

This gruesome example of Mother Nature gone wildly wrong was found by one brave man while performing mandatory lawnscaping duties. He saw this abomination and wisely ran for the nearest expert… his wife.

Never before has such a abomination of nature been seen, at least not in my yard. Hopefully a misshapen creation of this design will never be seen again.

Remember fair citizens, you saw it here first. At Hanna’s Garden Oddities Show!

I am thankful I don’t live in South Africa… where they have slugs bigger than my hand!

I was directed to a rather odd article in the New York Times about the fact that worms will be the end of the forest as we know it, or some other some similar media derived disaster.

But I know a very simple solution to this problem. It is one that has worked for centuries. We should simply create a demand of earthworms as a delicacy. The problem outlined in the article would be resolved in just a few decades.

I know what you are thinking. “Earthworms! Eat earthworms! Only if you do it first.”

This, I do not have a problem with. I have not only eaten earthworms, I know how to prepare and serve them. When I was in college, I was forced to take a speech class with a professor who was apparently fed up with teaching and sought only to to make everyone as miserable as she was. One of our assignments was to give an informational speech on any subject we wanted provided we could find 3 sources to support it. Boy, I was never happier to be able to participate in the fledgling beginning of the internet because I found 3 sources online on how to prepare and serve fried earthworms.

I went down to my local bait shop and bought a container of worms. I soaked them in milk. I squeaked out the gut contents. And then in front of the class, I prepared, served and ate fried worms.

Oddly enough, I got a D on the speech. It was a flawless presentation but apparently the professor felt that the material was inappropriate. Can’t for the life of me see why.

Gee, we eat shrimp and lobster and they are really no more than seafaring bugs. Heck, we even consider them to be delicacies. What’s the difference between on invertebrate and another. And for the record, earthworm tastes alot like calamari.

If we were to make a nation-wide effort to turn earthworms into a delicacy, we could turn the whole earthworm overpopulation issue around. Market it as a good side dish to have with beer and serve it alongside peanuts. We would need a good spin doctor on this, but I think we could make it work. It would not be the first species we ate into extinction.

In the mean time, I will just say… “Do your part and just start eating worms!”

Like 90% of the residents of the 12 states that participate in the Mega Millions lottery, I bought a lottery ticket today. The other 10% are either dying in hospitals and unable to express their desire to buy a ticket or living in Florida for the winter and were unable to buy a ticket.

Now, I normally don’t buy lottery tickets. But today I bought one. Really, I only bought a chance. God knows, with my chances being 1 in 176,145,920 of winning, I didn’t really buy a chance to win. What I really bought from my friendly neighborhood lotto and liquor dealer was the chance to dream.

Now most people, when asked what they would do if the won some overly enormous lottery, gush on and on about how they would open a home for wayward kittens or honest politicians or other members of society who just don’t get a fair shake in life.

But as I don’t really think I am going to win, I am certainly not going to waste my chance at dreaming by thinking how I could help other people. If I won the lottery (which I know I won’t) I would spend every last little penny on me and my gardening.

The first order of business would be to buy a new garden. Granted, I love my little postage stamp garden, but bigger is better, especially when you can afford to buy… I mean, hire a few dozen landscapers to help you out.

I have always had an eye on Martha Stewart‘s Skylands estate, once home to the Ford family. She paid a mere $5 million for it and I am sure that I could convince her to part with it for a few million more. Let’s face it, I would have money to spare.

Then again, it pays to shop around. I could just pick up the latest Open Days Directory and do a little window shopping, so to speak, and have my pick of the best private gardens in the United States.

I would most defiantly have to become eccentric. One just can not go through the shock of becoming richer than 50% of Paris Hilton’s closest friends without experiencing some sort of mental damage.

And in my newly found eccentric ways, I would build gigantic garden decor. 30 foot gnomes, bird baths suitable for pterosaurs and a plastic flamingo that would frighten any life loving alligator.

And a green house. Aw hell, I might just stop living in a real house and just take up permanent residence in a green house. You know what they say about glass houses though… The maid just has fit when it comes time to wash the windows.

I suppose I would have to do some acts of charity. Let me see, what would I do? I would make my garden a private hunting reserve for deer hunters. I would create a refuge for abandoned and abused house plants. And no school or educational garden within a 100 mile radius would be without plants and supplies for their projects.

Yep, there are alot of things that I could do with $370 million dollars. And for the low, low price of a dollar, I get to dream about what I would do with it all when (not gonna happen) I win.

I spent this past weekend hanging out with a few dear friends down in Columbus. It was one of those times that mothers tend to treasure most when their children are young, in that the mother’s children were not involved and were happily staying at their grandparent’s house. In other words, I had a very peaceful weekend.

My friends and I decided that it would be nice if we stopped off to get a nice cup of something hot and perused a few books and thus we found ourselves at the Borders closest to my friend’s house. I, of course, made a bee line to the nearest gardening section.

To my dismay, the gardening section was rather small. At first I chalked it up to the fact that it is still deep winter here and no one in Cleveland or Columbus is thinking too hard on gardening right now.

But as I got to the end of the gardening bookshelves, I found what I believe to be the reason behind the less than stellar selection. Apparently, the urban Columbus interests in gardening differ in scope from the average suburban Cleveland interest.

My first clue was the book entitled Hashish!. Having spent a few months in my early twenties in Europe, I knew exactly what that word meant and did a double take. No, they don’t really mean…

Well, if I had any doubts, the more blunt (no pun intended) “Grow Great Marijuana” sitting next to it confirmed any thoughts I may have had. And the next twenty books on that shelf and the next just kept reconfirming it.

So, granted, my friend lives just a block or so away from High Street and Columbus is the home to the largest university in the United States, but, well, to tell the truth, it never occurred to me that anyone would need a book on how to grow illicit drugs. I thought this sort of information was passed furtively on rather tattered sheets of paper or at the very most posted on websites that are hosted in Uzbekistan.

But, after seeing the books, it does occur to me that growing pot is just another form of gardening and, just like any other form of gardening out there, there are people who are looking for a little guidance and direction.

Marijuana seeds are probably just as tricky to germinate as tomato seeds. Dampening off has to be a problem too. And let’s face it, there is a monetary value attached to a bumper crop of high quality weed makes it all the more important to make sure you are growing the best you can. And all of this has to be done under the less than ideal conditions of keeping you actions hidden from local law enforcement. My tomatoes never had that issue.

Still, I think that in my relative “old age” I find that I get more enjoyment out of a well grown tomato plant than I ever did out of a well grown pot plant. Not that I ever smoked the stuff… Okay, okay, so I did a long time ago. But I swear, I never inhaled.

ACKKK! MY TOMATO SEEDS HAVE BEEN SNATCHED!

And by the United States government no less. I always knew there was something shady about that Bush character. Iraq, bad foreign policy and crumby environmental stands aside, the real issue here is my tomato seeds. Customs took my tomato seeds.

I ordered some hard to find tomato seeds from The Organic Gardening Catalogue in England a few weeks ago and I was delighted when the supposed seeds arrived today. More seeds, just what I need to keep the winter blues away. I rip open the package to take a looksee at what was inside only to find only two pieces of paper.

I didn’t bother to read the papers at first. Just silly packing slips most likely. My hand groped in the package to no avail. I even shook the package and peered inside hopefully, thinking that the errant seed packs lay nestled in some secret corner. No go. No seeds.

Then I turned my attention back to the paper. Indeed, one was a packaging slip. The other was a mail interception notice from US customs. The bastards!

According to the form, my seeds were seized under USDA regulation CFR 319.37 which aims to:

prohibit or restrict the importation into the United States of certain
plants and plant products to prevent the introduction of plant pests into the
United States

Oh yes, I can see exactly where tomato seeds fall in that definition. We certainly wouldn’t want a rouge tomato growing and becoming invasive in the US and we all know how well tomato seeds transport potentially lethal plant diseases. *roll eyes*

Hmmm… At the risk of being labeled a plant terrorist, I emailed The Organic Catalogue and asked them to resend the seeds in a plain envelope. Perhaps this time my package can slip stealthily past the keen eyes of US customs so that I can further work to subvert all that is good and just in the US. Or, failing that, just have a few more unusual tomato seeds for my garden.

How important are pumpkins to your Halloween festivities? For me, they are utterly crucial to the celebration.

Halloween without a jack-o’-lantern is like Christmas without a pine tree, Easter without any eggs and election day without any smear ads. It just doesn’t happen.

But this year, it just might be a pumpkinless holiday for many pumpkin procrastinators. Between heavy rains rotting seeds in the ground, harsh summer temps reducing fruiting blossoms and two mysterious pumpkin rots attacking pumpkins in the field, a significant portion of the pumpkin harvest this year has been ruined.

The question is, does these problems really affect the small end consumers (that would be you and me) in shopping for a Halloween pumpkin?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on who you talk to.

The ever reliable news says that you should worry and that the pumpkin end of the world as we know it is nigh. I think they have said the same thing about West Nile Virus, Killer Bees and Bird Flu too, but this could be the time they get it right.

People who really know, like farmers and farm bureaus, say there is not much to worry about when it comes to buying that uber-necessary Halloween pumpkin.

Yes, there has been a significant reduction in the number of pumpkins that have been harvested, but the Halloween Pumpkin Market makes up only a portion of the overall pumpkin economy. I mean, where do you think they get the pumpkin for all those tasty Thanksgiving pumpkin pies (or cans of pumpkin for those of you who make your own tasty pumpkin treats)?

Halloween pumpkins also demand a higher premium, so chances are the pumpkin food market will suffer before the Halloween market does.

You may see a slight increase in the price of pumpkin pies and other pumpkin products. You may even see a rise in the prices of your Halloween pumpkins, but that is only because the pumpkins for sale at your local market may have had to be imported from another state due to a local shortage but this happens almost every year.

Pumpkins are tricky to grow and every year there are always a few areas that are short on pumpkins due to crop failures. Every year, there are always localities who have to import their pumpkins from another state.

Will there really be a nationwide pumpkin shortage this year? Probably not. Does it hurt to go buy your pumpkin early? Probably not. Of course, it is way cooler if you can just grow your own.

“The foolish colonel will foam and froth at the mouth and double over with appendicitis. All that oxalic acid! One dose and you are dead. Johnson suffers from high blood pressure, too. That deadly juice will aggravate the condition. If the wolf peach is too ripe and warmed by the sun, he’ll be exposing himself to brain fever. Should he survive, by some unlikely chance, I must remind that the skin of the Solanum lycopersicum will stick to the lining of his stomach and cause cancer.”
- Dr. James Van Meeter (1820)

When I was in college, there was a most bizarre kind of party you could attend. It was a “Faces of Death” party. For those of you not familiar with the “Faces of Death” movies, they are a series of documentary films that depict real people committing suicide.

Understandably, at that time, the films were very hard to get a copy of (though today you just have to go to Amazon) so when someone was able to get their hands on a copy of one of the films, they threw a party and everybody was invited to come over to drink themselves ill while watching a video where people killed themselves.

I know, it is a sick way to pass the time, but believe it or not, this sort of gathering is not in any way unique to colleges in the early 1990s.

The quote at the top was from the doctor of one Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson after hearing that Colonel Johnson had proposed to sit on the courthouse steps and eat an entire basket of tomatoes. Dr. Meeter was fairly certain that he would be witnessing his patient commit suicide on the steps of that courthouse and had no qualms about letting anybody and everybody know about it.

In true “Faces of Death” tradition (predition?), over two thousand people, some coming from many miles away, gathered around the courthouse steps that day to watch a man commit near certain suicide. I am not quiet sure if they drank themselves ill. I think that may just be part of the college version.

Colonel Johnson was a consummate tomato lover, which was saying a lot for a guy who lived in the United States in the early 1800s. At that time most people (as you can see from Dr. Meeter’s quote) were pretty sure that tomatoes were painfully lethal if you consumed them. This whole attitude may be understandable if it were universal opinion, but it wasn’t.

By this time, the French, Spanish and Italians had already whole hearted adopted the tomato into their national cuisines, but us crazy Americans couldn’t get that through our thick skulls. They were lethal, always been lethal, always gonna be lethal, now pass the cornbread and shut up.

Colonel Johnson had made it his personal mission to bring Tomato Enlightenment to the American masses. At first, he tried a subtle approach. He offered a prize every year to the person who could grow the largest tomato. More people did start growing the tomato, but only as they had traditionally been grown in the US, as an ornamental vine.

That was simply not enough for Colonel Johnson. He would not sit by and watch his beloved tomato simply die on the vine, so to speak. So, he proposed to prove to everyone that they were not a lethal fruit. He announced that he would eat an entire basket of tomatoes, one right after another, in front of God, Justice and everybody.

The date was set for Sepember 26th, 1820. The town and media went into a frenzy. Nothing says entertainment like watching a guy eat himself to death.

The day arrived and as promised, Colonel Johnson showed up on the courthouse steps with a basket of luscious yellow tomatoes in tow (believe it or not, yellow strains of tomatoes are actually the closer relatives to the original wild strains and are the ones that would have been more widely grown at the time).

He sat down and bit directly into the first one. Supposedly a few women in the gathered onlookers actually screamed and fainted, so certain they were that they were witnessing a man kill himself.

Colonel Johnson finished the entire basket and left the courthouse steps triumphant. The newpapers spread the story far across the US and this media stunt is widely considered to be the turning point in United States / tomato relations. Colonel Johnson had succeeded in his mission. People in the US finally accepted that you could eat tomatoes without fear of death or illness.

In the US today, we consume an average 100 pounds of tomatoes each and nearly half the households in the US grow at least one tomato plant every year. I think we have gotten over the whole death phobia about them. I just wonder if we have gotten over the whole death fascination. Probably not. Who needs “Faces of Death” when you have the 11 o’clock news to watch?

Some information for this post was taken from “American Tomato“, which is an excellent book on tomatoes if you have the time.

Picture taken by Katinka Kober.

Are you unfortunate enough to live next door to a neighbor who is a world class jerk?

Perhaps you have a neighbor who is the “Property Line Persecutor” or the “Building Inspector Tattle Tale” or the dreaded “Just an Ass”. There are, of course, many, many more types of jerks that you can run up against in your everyday life but if you live next door to one, that can make pleasurable gardening more of a chore than it should be.

You could do something like say, oh, throw rotten eggs at their car or TP their house but because they live right next door to you these are probably is not viable options. Besides, doing these things would be childish. Satisfying, but childish.

In situations like these you are much better off taking the passive aggressive route and slowing driving your neighbor mad until they are forced to sell their house and move or take up residence at a local mental health institute. Either way, they will be out of your hair.

Your garden provides a great many opportunities to irritate a neighbor such as this.

Today, we will cover just a few of these garden irritation options.

1. Get a garden gnome ‘ And not just any garden gnome. Get one dressed like your jerk neighbor’s former profession. Then sit back as he makes an ass out of himself in the international news.
2. Add large phallic garden art to your backyard – Nothing says loving like an oversize phallic symbol thrusting out of your back garden. The more realistic, the better. Be responsible and keep the art in question away from small fries eyes, but make sure your jerk of a neighbor can’t enjoy a single back yard barbecue without feeling that things are just a bit stiff.
3. Build a small working lighthouse and run it at all hours of the night – The beauty of a lighthouse over a run-of-the-mill garage light is that a revolving lighthouse light is not constant. The body can adjust to the constant light of a flood light. But light that happens in intermittent bursts will just drive a person batty. Bonus points for you if you can align the light to go into your neighbor’s bedroom window.
4. Make decorating your garden for a holiday a year round extravaganza – You are suppose to keep Christmas in your heart year round, so why not the garden? Making your yard an August Winter Wonderland complete with Christmas trees, Santa, the Elves and Baby Jesus smiling from in between the daylilies is sure to push a few of your jerk neighbor’s buttons. For an extra annoyance factor, choose to decorate year round for the atypical decorating holidays like President’s Day or Groundhog Day.
5. Take up plastic garden decoration collecting – If one pink flamingo looks kitschy think what 30 or 40 will do for your yard. Start your own Noah’s Ark of plastic garden critters. Just for extra annoyance factor, dress your menagerie and change their clothing at least once a week. Give them cutesy names and talk about them to your neighbor as though they are living creatures.

This is not a comprehensive list of all the things your can do in your garden to irritate your neighbors if they happen to be jerks but it is enough to get those creative juices flowing.

Remember, while good fences make good neighbors, good garden based irritation tactics will get bad neighbors to move out and will give good neighbors a chance to move in.