How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our garden looks like the withered, dried-up dreams of a hopeless housewife with delusions of grandeur only matched by the greatness of her reality check.

Translation: I am locked in an epic battle to encourage at least ONE THING in our garden to flourish to the point of harvest.

On the good side: good soil, organic mulch, consistent watering, pruning, staking, protection from birds via a clever PVC pipe and net structure; biodegradable pest spray, the planting of marigolds to ward off bugs, and the fact that I let the little garden spiders do their job. If you know me and my arachnophobia, you know this is a big deal for me. I delight in watering every day. I cheer the resident praying mantis and the lady bugs I saw on the plants one day. I pluck the few cherry tomatoes I can with joy. I cut twigs of thyme, cilantro and basil as needed.

On the EVIL side: dry, browning plants; yellowing and curling of tomato leaves; the tomatoes won't set any more fruit (does a 2 1/2 tomato ratio to 8 plants strike you as wrong? One plant already full on withered and died), half of the seeds I planted never sprouted; there are ants, whiteflies, grasshoppers, leaf hoppers, other crappy plant-eating bugs, it is way too hot and sunny, and now...the gopher. At least, I think it's a gopher.

Do you remember the flat top hair styles of the '80's? Picture this as a good analogy for how my string beans look. One day they were bushy and flowering, and the next day they had been cut - chopped, rather - in half. Chopped. The peppers were the next to suffer missing appendages, and I have no clue why the little rodent isn't eating the other things. Picky, I guess.

I can't stand it. After everything we have suffered, we now have a RODENT to deal with! I wanted so badly to reap the rewards of a good harvest, and I am now reaping despair and anger.

I should have seen it coming. For a few days as I watered I saw evidence of a critter in the garden, but only in the shifting of soil and a few attempted holes. This went on for a few days without any of the plants being touched, and I started to almost feel violated, like the least he could do was take a few bites and not just be a sort of garden voyeur. He works at night and we have never seen him, causing deep speculation on our part as to what exactly "he" is. Then, he made his move: the bird netting was chewed through, the plants chopped straight like a mini rodent chainsaw had hit them, and my basil was absolutely decimated. DECIMATED. No one messes with my basil without consequences.

We knew we had to do something and do it quickly because every night the damage increased and more hair was pulled from my head in rage and fits of insanity. It's expensive to start a garden, and since the yield was oh, a few peppers and a handful of cherry tomatoes thus far, we knew we hadn't a lot of time. I started searching online for pest control companies, and thinking it might be a pack rat due to former comments by my neighbor (who, by the way, grows her garden with the greenest of thumbs. All she does is breathe on them and *poof* - nice, plump tomatoes, firm zucchini, and an all-you-can-eat-without-barfing-for-jealousy smorgasbord is yours to enjoy.), I indicated to Pat the pest control guy that this might be the case.

Pat graciously came and did a free inspection, and after he quickly ruled out pack rats, I breathed a sigh of relief (they are notoriously hard to get rid of and come on, they are rats) mingled with a deep-set hatred for our new culprit, a gopher or ground squirrel, and set out to eradicate the threat. After all, I now have a species to go with the damage. You have to know your enemy before you can properly fight it.

I really wish there were fewer pest control companies who sympathize with humane ways to get rid of pests, too. Strange that I couldn't locate any companies when I Googled, "horrible, painful ways to kill/maim/destroy/blow up/go after the relatives and posterity of gophers and other associated rodents." I could only come up with a few local chat spots with people asking how to get rid of the same, but the answers from the local yokels were more like the ramblings of one who sat in front of the computer screen all day playing Star Wars online and learning how to improve on the ol' burning bag of poo trick. Thanks for your help, guys.

Okay, okay, so my true colors come out. No, I am not trying to have charity for the vermin because I feel a deeper connection to the plants I have lovingly cared for since their births and who now sport fades worse than the entire cast of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." If someone makes your babies look ugly, there is no mercy.