The Catch-up, Part Two: Weeding

Over the last few months, I've begun several posts without publishing. Over the next couple weeks, I'll be publishing them here, unedited, unfinished. This post was begun on March 27, 2018.

Growing out pumpkins takes so much TIME and CARE and ATTENTION. A late frost will hurt you. A mild drought, a hailstorm. Heck, even a heavy rain. Bugs will eat your whole crop, if Raccoons don't get to it first. Last year we had vandals. Two years ago, Pumpkin Spice Latte Backlash.

Knowing all this, I'm amazed at the way some other plants seem to grow no matter what. Little grasses and weeds pop up everywhere, when there's barely any water, barely any sun. They find a way.

It's never a helpful plant, of course. I never get surprise pumpkin vines fighting through the tangle. Just grasses whose heads prick through your socks, into your shoelaces and jeans. Or the big nasty weeds, with their thick stems and broad leaves, that make you stink just from trying to pull them. Or the innocuous wildflowers, that seem like the only splash of color in a sea of green.

They're pretty, those wildflowers. But they're wild. And they're taking away from my pumpkins. A wildflower stands out, but it stands for nothing - it comes as it pleases, but it doesn't give you any sustenance, it just distracts you from the task at hand: putting in time, and care, and attention to the crop that pays your bills. To the crop you love.