Gardenist: Doing the Grunt Work Sucks.

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 21, 2007 6:30PM

While we've been bragging about the size of our tomatoes and the bountiful yield of our basil plant, we've let the necessary tasks of pruning and weeding our garden go untended. Just take a look at the creeper vines and other weeds surrounding our pepper plants.

We knew when we decided to plant a garden in our backyard that it would take more than some water and sun to get some yield from our plants and herbs. We just don't like weeding, and resorted to procrastination when our thoughts turned to the garden. Enjoying our morning coffee in the backyard last weekend, however, we became ashamed at how far we let our garden grow (out). Much like the haircuts we schedule every three months, the garden was due.

So we sucked it up, reached for the pruning shears and garden weasel, and set to work. Four-and-a-half hours later, with the shuffle play on our iPod alternating between Motörhead, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Ely Guerra, Chet Baker and some classic Stax, we had our garden looking good just before the rains hit. Unfortunately, in our zeal to remove all the weeds, our thyme plant became a casualty, while the oregano we planted was long overrun by creeper vines. Also, pruning and trussing all the tomato vines literally gave us green thumbs that required some effort to remove. Still, a small consolation was had as we checked out the quickly blossoming pepper plants (you'll see those on Thursday). We also harvested a large amount of plum tomatoes, some of which we'll stew, the rest we'll stuff with crab salad.