Gardening Advice For Halloween

The Fresh Dirt on Perking Up Your Garden

Psst! What’s the dish, the dirt, the down low, the buzz? You know the chit chat, the chin music, the scuttlebutt on perking up my garden?

When you ask that way, I remember my antenna twitching, my ears tuned in. I tumbled to the news that boiling water kills weeds. Kills weeds I say better than any poisonous product bought off the shells. Douse a weed with boiling water and the weed falls harder than a dame for George Clooney on s moonlit night in Italy.

What else?

I hear, from sources, sources that remain in the shadows. Darker than sleeping in the coffin, that keeping mud off the rugs that Jimmy heisted requires little booties on your shoes, when you step inside from the garden. Mud inside? Fuhgeddaboudit.

You are not shortchanging me, are you? I got some pull, I can dish the dirt, too.

Yeah, give me some.

Between you and me, we got to be careful. Careful when we bury stuff. Take that hydrangea, the blue flowers means the soil is acidic. That’s where we buried all that aluminum. The heist. You remember?

Yeah, my mind is a safe! The pink one. What’s wrong there? 

No aluminum! Pine needles would work, they’re acid. 

My head. My head is pounding, from all this talk. 

You need an aspirin. By the way, pal, did you know that aspirin will strengthen plants, like garlic strengthens the breath of Louie the mouth? Just add 1 ½ aspirins to two gallons of water. Every three weeks, you do this, you got them plants fighting off disease like Jimmy the rope fought off marriage with Lucille.  

Did you hear about Monty the twitch? Yeah, Monty the twitch is now Monty the pause. He got the garden. First thing you know, he’s not twitching anymore. He’s relaxed. He pauses like an old dog with a bad nose sniffing trees. Nothing. Nothing bothers the guy, I tell you.

Did you hear about my girl, Theresa? Theresa. Sixteen year-old Theresa. I caught her and her boyfriend lip-locking the other night. You know how dark it is back there behind the house. Lip locking. Yeah we both used to do it, but not my daughter. Anyways, I nipped that in the bud. Hung up some lights. Now after Theresa is in bed, me and Martha sit out there by the garden. No, not lip locking!

We got the place fixed up real nice. We added some of those wind chimes we see at the beach. No, not the big booming kind. The kind that are quiet-like.

What do you want with wind chimes that are quiet? Makes no sense.

To you maybe. We can hear them. These would be nice for Monty the pause. Calm.

The wife, Martha, brought home some bird houses and a bird feeder, Year a bird feeder. That ok with you? Al right. We put them up in the garden. We sit out in the evening and just watch the birds. It’s cheap entertainment.