How Does Your Garden Grow?

I am afraid William Alexander's $64 tomato is beginning to sound like a bargain.

A rented rototiller to turn up rocks and a few specks of dirt... chicken wire to keep out the deer (although we have been assured they can and will jump the fence we made from it unless we put a cover over it)... steel rebar (whatever that is... Steve's been throwing the word around all weekend like a pro), landscape fabric to keep out the weeds... lumber to build one raised bed (this hosts herbs, the veggies have to make-do with the ground)... mulch... gas to drive back and forth to Agway twenty times, organic fertilizers to feed the plants.... a copy of Organic Gardening for Dummies to give us a clue...

Yikes. I was almost too broke to buy the seeds and plants. Dummies, it turns out, should stay away from gardening, especially the organic kind. Dummies are better off sipping coffee at the farmer's market while carrying reusable bags overflowing with greens on the crooks of their elbows.

But, I stayed up late pouring over my book. I was worried about deer and rabbits destroying my fledgling plants, but after a few hours of cramming with the dummies, I went to sleep terrified of slugs and cutworms, larvae and flies. Root rot and mildew. Aphids and moles, voles, skunks and racoons. And what?? Not all types of lady bugs are good? These plants don't stand a chance - especially given the number one and two enemies my book failed to mention - Alex and Cate.

After watching my two dedicated assistants in our newly planted, small country of a garden, I have come to the conclusion that when gardening with preschoolers, it is best to plant only two tomatos, spaced some 50 feet apart. Using this design, there exists the slightest possibility that the children can navigate about the garden without stepping on anything that is attempting to grow.

But I am probably getting ahead of myself. By tomorrow morning, the deer will have found our feeble attempt and made a light appetizer of it.

My goal is to keep this garden alive until it at least provides a full meal to our backyard neighbors.

In return, maybe, just maybe, they will leave my window boxes alone.