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Ralph Gardner Jr.'s avatar

Thank you. Nice to know somebody shares my pain.

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JudgeRoyBean's avatar

Best ever!

Oh how I’ve been there and done that!!!

“As a matter of fact, I foolishly considered organizing my summer travel plans around my ripening tomatoes. Oh, what a fool am I!”

Those two sentences distill it down! You could make a T-Shirt with that on the front and back, you’d make thousands and you could go buy all the tomatoes your heart desires!

“Let’s take a step back. Or two. Or 10. In June 2016, Roy Berendsohn, an editor at Popular Mechanics, helped me construct planting beds.”

Oh man! I made an aesthetically pleasing raised bed using treated wood (I know, I know) at least 3.5 feet high (to save my back) in my far backyard after I had a small, inelegant, raised bed on the side of my house that grew so many peppers and tomatoes that most went to waste, despite a plague of chipmunks on the side of the house.

Initially, the architectural equivalent of the Eiffel Tower, all the plants thriving, early on, was marveled at by all who visited…but a plague of deer, chipmunks, rabbits, and rot of all types, turned the beautiful into the grotesque, just like all the Egyptian princess who turn to dust and have populated “Mummy” movies from Boris Karloff, onwards…

“My wife suggested I cut my losses and save my mental health. Why not just grow a plant or two in a pot on our second floor deck? That’s a thought. But I’ve seen chipmunks up there, too.”

EXACTLY!!! Been there, done that! Putting it on your deck is like opening a Golden Corral, with a view, for chipmunks and squirrels.

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