You might be a gardener if…

32
 Hanna   Umm... Yeah

You might be a gardener if…

…Your vegetable crisper drawer holds more vegetable seeds than actual vegetables

…When you go to the circus and step in elephant dung and your first thought is “I wonder if that would be good on the garden” and your second thought is “I wonder if they have a “U-haul it free” program.

…If you have convinced your fiancé that The Svalbard Global Seed Vault makes a really good honeymoon destination.

…When you buy a house, your realtor’s checklist of gotta haves to look for before showing you a house contains no bishop weed on property, good southern light, and organic material rich soil (bonus if you provided a Tupperware container of desired soil type).

…You ever did not a pay a bill because you had spent your money buying a plant or seeds.

…If you spent more on plants than groceries in one month.

…Your kitchen cooking utensils also serve as gardening implements.

…You buy potting soil by the bale.

…You regularly trash pick for plastic pots and seedling cells.

…Killing slugs is a pleasurable and fulfilling pastime.

…Accidentally ruined pants because you mysteriously found yourself weeding.

…You have ever rescued a plant from an abandoned lot, building or yard.

…You have ever peed in your garden in an attempt to keep deer away.

…You have hired a shaman to cast a spell in an attempt to keep deer away.

…You have spent more on deer repellents than plants in an attempt to keep deer away.

…You have just said “fuck it” and have run out into your front yard in a nightgown holding a loaded semi-automatic weapon and chased a deer down the street.

Feel free to add your own!

32 thoughts on “You might be a gardener if…”
  1. Allotment Blogger on

    Ha! I have definitely done: failing to pay bills, choosing houses according to garden soil, plant rescue and trash picking!

  2. Gardener on Sherlock Street on

    …you’ve gone out in a hail storm to pull as many containers as possible in under the patio.

    …you’ve found yourself weeding a friend’s garden and having a great conversation with someone you just met at the party who is also weeding the garden. The friend whose house you’re at is no where to be seen.

  3. Swamp Thing on

    Ha! I have definitely peed in the garden to keep the deer and rabbits away! And our community garden DID get a load of manure from the zoo, which is now sprouting funny weeds.

    Funny list.

  4. Melissa on

    …you’ve ever gone outside in your barely there’s “just for a quick peak” and spent the next two hours weeding dressed that way

  5. Suzanne on

    Most summer mornings find me outside in my “barely there’s” when I let my hens out for the day. I can’t pull one weed–so I usually come in filthy dirty about 2-3 hours later. Isn’t this normal summer behavior?

  6. Twill Jill on

    …you’ve ever gone outside with a flashlight at 10 p.m. in a snowstorm on a November evening to pick the last of the brussels sprouts for Thanskgiving Dinner

    … you pick weeds like a relfex – even if it’s on public property and your taxes are supposedly paying someone else to do that job

    …you go off one someone when you see them killing a bee for no good reason because that ignoramus has apparently never heard of colony collapse disorder and now there’s one less bee out there pollinating

  7. Kate on

    …you believe that Bishop’s Weed is really an alien invader from another planet.

    …you never go to visit other gardeners without spare pots and maybe a few cuttings in your car.

    …fingernails? what fingernails? I garden.

  9. Janet on

    Great list, but definitely 1)southern and 2) american. We don’t chase deer out of our gardens here. We chase away bears that are tearing apart our garden sheds because it doubles as our meat hanging shed. And we don’t use semi-automatics because they are prohibited or registered or something. We use our 1) bear spray 2) bear dog or 3) pellet gun to chase the bears away.

  10. Katherine on

    You pay your kid and his friends a penny for each aphid they squish.
    You realize that wearing nice clothes means you can’t easily do a bit of weeding or moving compost around… and so the nice clothes stay in the closet.
    You can wash dishes almost without taking your eyes off the view of your garden.

  11. Mary on

    you spend 5 hours on the internet in the middle of the night to identify pesky weeds and learn how to kill them without harming precious veggies.

  12. Donna on

    If you have ever bawled your eyes out over the loss of a half a dozen tomato seedlings….and you still have 75 seedlings….and you only needed 30.

    You have so many seeds you wont be able to grow them all in the next decade(maybe in a lifetime)….but still find yourself needing just one more variety.

  13. Remote Gardener on

    Absolutely awesome. Hilarious. I’m going to have to come up with some of my own.

    When you look at people buying tomatoes in the grocery store with pity and disgust…

    When you go to subway and walk out because the veggies are just not fresh enough…

    🙂 Thanks for the smile added to my face today.

  14. C. on

    When you would rather weed than talk, eat, watch TV, work.
    When you would never consider weeding work, and take off a day of work to weed!
    When you can’t seem to toss divided plants, and go to great lengths to find homes for them.
    When you mysteriously tear up smelling freshly turned spring soil or while “working” in your garden because it gives you so much comfort and peace.

  15. Window On The Prairie on

    I have to admit I’ve done most of the things on your list. Glad to hear that I’m not the only one though. Does taking pics of columbine late in the evening so I can do a post last night for my blog count?

  16. Terry on

    My daughter asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day and the number one item on my list was “someone fix my rain barrels so I don’t have to suck on a hose to make the water flow”

  17. Lisa on

    That was a hoot! I can relate to ALL of them, including the commenters’ additions. I could add a couple more about saving vegetable scraps from WORK for my worm bin and composter, and obsessively saving every eggshell and banana peel to use as soil additives….

  20. John on

    -When you take your dughters to the local pick-your-own and you spend more time “picking” weeds around his strawberries than actual strawberries. (because yours are immaculately clear of weeds due to OCD)

    -When you pee on your compost because all it needs is a little N to get hot again.

    -When your friends tell YOUR gardening stories for you at dinner parties. (the worm bin is the favorite of all my friends)

  22. Nicole on

    Hard to add to the great lists, and hard to stop from laughing because everything is so familiar….

    If the number of seeds you buy bears no relation to how many plants you have space for….

    If you can show photographs of plants the way some people can show pictures of their children…

    If every where you look, you see way too much grass covered space that you’d use for planting….

    If you stare at vegetables in the supermarket and think “I could do that better”….

    If you hear a noise outside at night, and your first thought is not your car or your safety, but whether some person or animal is in your garden…

    If you can name more than 20 varieties of tomatoes, 20 varieties of peppers, and can’t understand someone who can’t…

  23. Anne on

    this is perfectly normal summer behaviour – even here in Germany – thank god for my garden walls….

  24. Ann Rein on

    I’ve just found your blog – OMG, it is all so true. I am compelled to garden, it’s in my blood. The only thing I haven’t had to deal with are deer – mainly due to the huge labrador that lives next door thankfully!

    Picking weeds is something I do subconsciously, not giving it a thought. Deadheading, too. I am compelled. As are so many others who have posted here – I’m in great company!

  25. Cindy on

    And, had to run and hide from a visitor that appeared out of nowhere!!

  26. Stefka on

    Suzanne…that is totally me, I go out in the morning to let the hens out, in my tee-shirt and panties and a cup of coffee and end up staying for an hour weeding, my knees covered in mud. Anne, I would love to see photos of gardening in Germany.

  27. Shannon on

    If you carry a shovel and garbage bag at all times in your trunk, just in case you come across a homeless plant, that needs to be in your garden.

    If you carry small envelopes in your purse for wayward seed heads you come across in your travels.

    If you pee in your garden for no outher reason than your to busy weeding to leave for 5 minutes.

    If you show up at the grocery store and your knees still have ground in dirt stuck to them.

  28. Suzanne Surburg on

    And…have an elderly gentleman neighbor who lives across the street and often comes over “too early” in the morning. When I tell him not to come in the yard because I’m not dressed, he tells me he “doesn’t mind”. I spoke to his wife last summer; the early morning visits have ceased.

  29. peggy on

    …if, upon reading “you’re a gardener if you have hired a shaman to cast a spell in an attempt to keep deer away” and you find yourself thinking, ‘hm…. that’s the next one to try, i guess.’

  30. Joan on

    Hilarious!

    Yes, I was at my niece’s house & playing with her kids when I had to stop and dead-head the petunias. “What are you doing?” A few moments later, I had 3 six-year old boys dead-heading. Spread the joy!

    One more to add:

    … when you consider selling a mortgage-fee home in order to buy one with a “real garden”

  31. Jay on

    You have done weeding in your work pants, mark and spencer shirt, tie and $150 hush puppy shoes!

    Your car is used as a tractor

    Potato beetles are on your hit list

    You have permanent black lining under your nails

    You hosted a weeding party

    You leave veggies at your neighborhood porches and run away

    You can turn any conversation into a gardening one

    You have Spring Seeding anxiety disorder

    You have summer pest paranoia disorder

    You check the weather 5 times a day even if its raining outside

    You are attracted to tractor catalogues than the fancy car ones

    You have a strong tan

    Farmers Market is your shopping mall

  32. Danielle on

    If you start selling Avon for the sole reason of developing a landscape fund….Even though the yard already has six huge garden beds and everyone who drives by says how pretty your yard is….I NEED MORE 🙂

    If you are outraged at the idea of the concrete slab from your old garage being hauled away for free…. I CAN MAKE A GARDEN PATH WITH THAT!

    If you consider going to the local demolition landfill to pick through their mounds of dangerous crap to find just a few more bricks….. that southside garden needs to come out just a bit but I’m out of border material.

    Your husband keeps building sheds in the hopes that he’ll actually have one all to himself instead of it being taken over by garden stuff. There are four now….

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