Pardon My Pen
By George Campbell
Things that grow in my garden
I have a friend who says, "If you can't eat it, it's not worth growing."
He can't see the value in planting, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and otherwise nurturing flowers. He doesn't seem to understand that food nourishes the body whereas flowers nourish the soul. Come to think of it, this friend of mine is a bit on the obese side. His soul, on the other hand, is probably a tiny, shrivelled up, and wrinkled little thing.
I like to grow both vegetables and flowers in my own garden, but what actually grows there is often something else entirely. Like weeds. I grow the most tiny, unappetizing tomatoes that ever graced a vine, and some of my flowers look like they have barely survived a life-threatening plague of aphids, but you ought to see my weeds. If there were a category for weeds at our annual Fall Fair I would win first prize.
I once grew a thistle that rivalled for height the plant in Jack and the Beanstalk. I discovered it one day when I was watering my petunias. It was just a little bit of a thing at first, and I really should have pulled it out right then and there. But it is, after all, the national emblem of Scotland and, me being a Campbell, I felt it would be unpatriotic if not downright sacrilegious to destroy the poor, wee thing. So I let it grow. It ended up five feet eight inches tall, about the same size as a full-grown Scotsman. And just as hardy, too.
Crabgrass and dandelions also do well in my garden. Of course crabgrass and dandelions do well almost anywhere. I have observed both plants growing vigorously out of a tiny crack in the middle of a well-traversed concrete sidewalk. I am surprised that they haven't found these pesky weeds growing on the moon and Mars.
There are several other green and disgustingly healthy weeds growing in my garden but I have no idea what they are called. No doubt an agriculturist could tell me the names of these plants, if I were interested. Probably something in Latin that means, "You can't kill me or get rid of me and like taxes I will dog you for the rest of your life, so you might just as well accept it." I have my own name for such weeds, but this being a family magazine, I can't repeat it here.
Back in 1910, an English lady by the name of Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote a children's story called "The Secret Garden." Today, right here in Powell River there are a number of so-called 'secret gardens' but they aren't for children. They are hidden in the middle of other gardens, or back in the hills amongst the trees. Sometimes they are grown in pots inside of a house. They are usually maintained by a gardener whose motto is: "If you can't smoke it, it's not worth growing."
Recently, I heard of a fellow who has one of these 'secret gardens'. That is, he used to have one. The local constabulary discovered it so it's no longer much of a secret. Also it isn't being looked after the way it should be as the gardener who planted it is away on a holiday. I'm not sure exactly where he is staying, but I do know it's at the government's expense.
He'd have been better off growing weeds — like me.
