It seems that Spring will soon be here in the southern Appalachians. Daffodils have poked up all over the place, or at least I think they are Daffodils. That’s what Meredith calls them. Redbud and Forsythia bushes are blooming. Again, that’s according to Meredith. I guess I’m a pretty poor Master Gardener candidate if I can’t identify the first flowering life we’ve seen in months.
Another sign that Spring will soon be upon us is that the local farmers and gardeners are starting to till their soil. As you drive around Fannin County you see dark, freshly turned fields and garden plots.
It was warm enough the other day that I was able to sit on the kitchen stoop clad only in my boxer shorts. The sun was shining brightly. There are major parts of my body that have not seen the sun since I left Florida. I’m sure I looked like a beached Beluga Whale sitting there. It was not a pretty sight. If I lived in a more populated area, I could have been arrested for cruelty to humanity. I’m glad we have no close neighbors.
I, for one, am a happy camper at the prospect that the worst of the Winter may be behind us. There were large parts of the last four months that I did not enjoy. It was the forced inactivity more than the cold.
I have been hard at work studying for my Master Gardener midterm exam. The good news is that I passed the test with a grade of 96. The bad news is that I completely overlooked and therefore did not answer three of the questions. There were fifty multiple choice questions on the test, and there was one bonus question. I completed the test in 16 minutes and then handed it in. That means I averaged about 20 seconds on each question. I guess I was so worked up over the test that I raced through it frenetically.
When I got the test back I saw the three questions that I overlooked, and I knew the answer to each one. What bothers me is that only one person answered every question correctly. If I had taken my time I could have had a perfect score on the test. I have been kicking myself ever since.
I know what you are thinking: why does it matter? It was only a test to become a Master Gardener; not a law school final exam.
I don’t have a good answer for why I was so worked up over the test and why I am so disappointed that I didn’t get a perfect score. I suppose some of it is ego and some of it is sheer competitiveness. Or maybe it’s the small triumphs that matter when you’re retired. I don’t know. What I do know is that I truly am an idiot and my own worst enemy at times.
That being said, I’m now comfortable that I can pass the course. But that does not make me a Master Gardener. I still have to do a project and 50 hours of volunteer service in the first year.
For my project I am going to propose to create a website for the Fannin County Master Gardeners. The purpose of the website would be to provide gardening advice and information to the public.
Most gardening websites I’ve seen are about as interesting as a curling competition. I was thinking of doing something different to attract public interest. I think I could have some fun with it.
For instance, in the old days, Reader’s Digest used to run a series of articles with titles like “I am Joe’s Kidney.” I could do something similar, only about weeds. I think “I am Your Crabgrass” or “I am Your Purple Nutsedge” are catchy titles. Who wouldn’t want to read informative articles about Pigweed, Common Cocklebur, and Prickly Sida? Okay, all of you can put your hands down now.
Another idea is to model the website after those lurid and sensational magazines you see in the checkout line at the supermarket. The website could have articles with screaming headlines like:
Jack’s Beanstalk – How Long Was It?
Little Miss Muffit’s Tuffit – Plastic Surgery or Not?
Who Has the Biggest Melons in the Garden?
Phallic Symbolism among Vegetables
Is Kohlrabi From Another Planet?
Who’s Been Spreading under the Chestnut Tree?
Sex and the Single Orchid
Whose Cucumbers are Really Pickles?
I’ve also been thinking of what type of continuing features I could have on the website to keep readers coming back for more.
Maybe the website could have a Dear Abbey-type column where people could write in about their gardening problems. I’d call it “Dear Uncle Wilty”. It could go something like this:
Dear Uncle Wilty,
My Big Boy Tomato is cross-pollinating with my cherry tomatoes. What should I do?
Signed: Forlorn Gardener
Dear Forlorn Gardener:
You better tell that Big Boy to keep his stamen out of the other tomatoes’ pistils or your cherry tomatoes may not be.
Signed: Uncle Wilty
How about a continuing feature called “My Favorite Vegetable” where website viewers are invited to write in about vegetables they have known and loved? I imagine that readers could get pretty racy when they start to describe their zucchini and eggplants. I would have to edit closely to remove any suggestive double entendres.
I think a monthly feature called “Plant Disease of the Month”, complete with graphic photographs, could provide valuable information to gardeners. The public seems to be attracted to gruesome things, and a close up of cabbage crown rot or turf grass slime mold fits the bill.
Another idea would be to serialize a story so that website viewers would come back to the website to see how it ends. I’d certainly follow a serialization of “Fifty Shades of Rose” or “Lady Chatterley’s Aster.” I can see it now:
He stood shirtless in the afternoon heat. His strong, supple body glistened as the sun caught the beads of sweat on his torso. His cucumbers, unfettered by the fence separating them, caressed the soft, velvety petals of her asters. She wondered what she would do if he reached over the fence to pluck her ripe pears.
Come back next week for another chapter of “Lady Chatterley’s Aster.”
Yeah, I could have a lot of fun with a gardening website. The only problem is that the Master Gardener program is associated with the University of Georgia which is a state supported school. That means that I will have to deal with bureaucracy to get approval for the website and its contents. When’s the last time you knew bureaucracy to get a joke or sanction anything remotely creative?
Even though I’m pretty sure I’ll be swimming upstream on this one, I’m going to propose the website as my Master Gardener project. I’d much rather do something like that than have to plant begonias around the town square.
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