What is it about digging in the dirt that makes my heart sing? Am I four again and making mud pies? Is it the sheer glee of moving the earth from one spot to another and feeling for an instant that I created something? Maybe it’s the false sense that I am in control (which is dashed with the next hailstorm, flood, drought, infestation…). Mind you, gardening is not for the faint of heart. It is grueling, repetitive, unnoticed and thankless (or was that housework?) The only thing is you get hooked by that glimmer of joy as the first daffodil pokes its head up.

And by the way, gardening is not an exact science either. Apparently, it is one part science and 99 parts weird magic ju-ju planetary pixie dust. Or how else can you explain that this year I lived long enough to see a cluster of thermos sized red tulips that actually looked like the package photo in my very own flower bed? I have been planting bulbs the same way for 50 years and this year the directions worked. Aha! Maybe doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results isn’t totally insane. But it is not much for anyone driven by instant gratification either.

The only thing that is different this year is that I am planting in Carolina clay which is basically adobe brick. This slimy muck is absolutely the worst soil substance under the sun, especially under the sun. Did I miss something here? Dirt so, well, dirty that it tints your white socks a permanent rusty-pink color is good for plants, how? (FYI: The Charlotte airport sells Carolina dirt stained T-shirts in case you think I’m kidding. Next time you’re sitting in one of their white rocking chairs on a long lay-over look at the shirts in the gift shop window. Dirt colored clothes! I’m in heaven. I always thought washing clothes ‘that you just got dirty again’ made no sense.)

Having been thunder-struck by my success with Fall bulbs I threw caution to the wind and planted seeds right into the moist earth. Now this is the part in my blog where I could wax poetic about seeds as symbols of life; the enduring side of optimism. Ye, as our struggles lay deep in a nurturing bed of hope to be watered by persistence, verily may they spring to fruition. “Bolderdash,” to quote my grandmother. Seeds mold, rot and are so piddly weeny that if little shoots do appear one blast of warmish air blows them hither and yon (which is not yon enough, if you ask me).

I realized just what folly I had tampered with when I went on a tour to Metrolina Growers today. There I gazed into a world unknown to most humans, a virtual candy factory for backyard hacks such as myself. As far as the eye could see the earth bend, there were mechanized growing beds and hanging pots (1,800 hanging pots per watering loop–similar to a dry cleaning hanger rack in an acre loop on the 20 foot ceiling X a ga-jillion) . Take that you “Hanging Garden’s of Babylon”. The entire place is automated with a smattering of human supervision for quality and “helping” the machines.

Like some baby boomer flashback, I was surrounded by flowers and they were all moving. That’s right. Picture if you will, the scene in Monsters, Inc. where Sully and Mike go into the mechanized ‘door storage area’. But instead of doors, there are 4X6 foot flats of flowers of every known kind and shape. Sliding under water sprayers, swinging between rollers, whisking over roadways, seeping in shallow bogs, drenched in plant food until they are so big they have to be replanted. Then finally packed wrapped and brought to shipping docks on trams. At last the bulging peat pots spewing color in every direction are brought to a Mega-store near my house for a fraction of what I have already shelled out for seeds.

I knew at once I had stumbled into heaven. I saw quickly why my meager efforts at seed growing was a mockery of creation. I knew in my heart I was not worthy to be let me in these doors. Surely no amount of ‘Mer-akle-gro’ could turn my paltry efforts into this jubilant bounty. I went home, much the way the Apostle John must have felt after recovering from seeing that Revelations incident. I was stunned. And yet I was peaceful knowing that seed growing was really someone else’s job.

Now I wonder how long it will be before I kill the stuff in the peat pots.

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