How Does Your Garden Grow?

Spring is here, and since the nights are now above freezing and flowers are blooming, it is time to plant Wizard Water seeds. They grow quickly – so quickly that someone needs to remain on hand to harvest the product as soon as it is ready. The plants usually reach fruition within days or sometimes even hours of planting, depending on the outdoor temperature and soil conditions. I tried to get my mule Bleb to watch over the crop last year, but he ate the sprouts before they could mature.
Therefore, I will guard the crop myself, even if it means keeping watch by night and day. If you see me sleeping in a field sometime in the next week, just remember that I am really hard at work.

Copyright © 2013 Laurie J. Anderson. All rights reserved.

The Recklessness of Youth

This past Saturday I sold a bottle of Wizard Water^© to a young lad in Toccoa with the usual warning that my product is highly concentrated and should only be used in small doses. He had other plans in mind, it turned out, because his mother came to me that afternoon and reported that she found her son wrapped in squash vines.

Apparently, after hearing what Wizard Water^© can do, the boy decided that a full dose would save him the trouble of toting buckets of water to irrigate his family's garden. He recklessly poured a whole bottle of Wizard Water^© over some freshly planted squash seeds. No sooner did he turn to get the hoe, however, than he heard a loud "boom!" and was showered with dirt. He looked back and saw that the squash plants had burst out of the soil. The vines were running towards him. Alarmed, he hacked at them with the hoe, but they grew so fast that he couldn't hit them twice in the same place.

He tried to flee, but the vines wrapped around his legs. Before he knew it, he was thoroughly enveloped. He called out to his mother -- too late. By the time she arrived the plants had carried the boy past the garden gate. The mother was distraught, of course, and ran to me for advice.

"Can he breathe?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "And we've gotten about fifteen pounds of squash off him already."

"Then I would leave him there for a day or so, long enough for him to consider the error of his ways and for you to harvest the crop that he was too lazy to take care of in the proper way. When you have enough squash, water the plant thoroughly with well water to dilute my elixir, and cut him free."

She promised to do as I advised.

Let this serve as a warning to other like-minded youth -- laziness does not pay! If you doubt me, you can go see for yourself -- the boy is situated directly opposite the Toccoa train depot...or he was yesterday. Just stay clear of the vines.

copyright ©2010 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Another Use for Politics

It was hot and dry again this week. My wife is now boiling shadows to water her garden.

I am working on a compound that makes use of political tracts as a fertilizer. I grew some very large watermelons earlier this summer with just a single campaign promise. Unfortunately, when we cut them open we found they were full of hot air. I am persevering, however. It seems to be more economical than actual manure, since a little bit goes a very long way.

copyright ©2011 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Another Fourth of July

Bleb got into the garden again yesterday and ate his way through the cowpeas, lima beans and peppers. I was unaware of this when I went to the barn last night to store some fireworks for my show next week, otherwise I might not have lit the hanging lamp. Then again, I might. I had no idea that gas could carry that far.

I will be spending the rest of this week repairing the north wall of our barn. My wife is adding barbed wire to the garden fence. With luck, another shipment of fireworks will arrive before I have to leave for my appointment in Savannah on the Fourth. I will likely be too busy to write.

One of the neighbors inquired this morning as to whether I was teaching Bleb how to climb trees. "No," I replied, "he is just inquisitive that way." If you see a mule with a charred tail sitting in a tree, tell him to come home.

copyright ©2010 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Plan Your Garden With the Help of Wizard Water©!

As you look eagerly towards planting season, remember that Doc Johnson’s Wondrous Wizard Water^© makes an excellent seed-starter. If you have a sunny window and a spare table or other flat-surfaced furniture, you can place seeds in soil you have warmed by the fire to room temperature and dampened with a few drops of Wizard Water^© while the ground is still frozen outside. Many accomplished gardeners use this method to get a head start with their crops or household gardens.

A word of warning, though: only use this method on a few seeds, and in rooms with high ceilings! I knew a woman who didn’t heed this simple advice, and lived to regret it. She competed annually in the county agricultural fair, but rarely won. In an effort to beat her neighbors in the “early fresh produce” category, one February she planted four dozen tomato seeds in tin cans placed by every window in her house, and wet them very liberally with Doc Johnson’s Wondrous Wizard Water^©. She awoke the next morning to find her roof elevated off its moorings! The seeds had sprouted overnight and their accelerated growth placed her rafters at twice the height of the walls! She was so loathe to lose the potentially prize-winning tomatoes that her husband had to add a second storey to the home, at great expense.

In addition, the plants produced so many tomatoes, so quickly, that she wore herself out harvesting the fruit. They sprouted and ripened faster than she and her family could pick and eat them. Every few minutes, night and day for weeks, she had to toss freshly-ripened tomatoes into a laundry pot she kept in the back yard and boil them down. She managed to sell extra jars of her boiled-down tomatoes, but never won the blue ribbon she sought for fresh produce.

So let this be a lesson to eager agricultural competitors: use Wizard Water^© sparingly, or you will have to stew lots of tomatoes to catch up.