This is NEVER good!

Now, I don't like to brag, but my garden this year is gonna be "All That and a bag of Chips!" I'm just sayin'. You know, I am getting to be a pro at this, what with planting several things OVER and OVER and OVER again already. My basil suffered a stroke soon after I planted it the first time. I don't know WHY they decided not to go on living, but the day after I planted 8, I came outside to see all of them totally dried up. SO, I got some more, this time, 9 plants. Then we had a small monsoon. (I'm pretty sure monsoons come inland to Indiana, right?) and the 9 little plants just couldn't take all that rain, and gave up, so the next, and LAST time, I planted 16 plants. Darn it all, I WANT to freeze some pesto this year, and so far, (I'm crossing my fingers) they are doing well.

My lone cucumber plant (one because more than that is just insane. We can't keep up with the volume of cucumbers), 4 watermelon plants, and 3 zucchini plants (same thing about volume of zucchini), have also died similar/yet more painful deaths. Remember when I said I had grown all of these by seed in my basement since Feb., and then one day, they were out in the cold frame, and the lid closed, and the glass in the panes FRIED everything I had worked so hard to grow. Yeah, my life is like this. Anyway, I replanted ALL of these, and out in the garden.....they have committed suicide. I have to go buy MORE of all of these. I don't know if the chicken poop that we worked into the soil was really strong (this didn't happen last year), or what, but this is getting ridiculous!

We have strawberries, peas, potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, onions, and corn that are doing just fine. Then Brent brought this home.

I call it the death machine. The first time this puppy came out, and the soil was tilled, it actually brought me to tears. Of frustration, NOT joy.

We have my father-in-laws tractor in our shed, and apparently this plow is my uncles. Who would've thought to put them together? I think you all know who....Brent. My husband, for all the wonderful things he does for me, does have one small flaw. His love for tractors far surpasses anything else. I think if I cut him, John Deere green blood would flow out.

Since my father-in-laws tiller broke halfway through our garden getting ready experience, Brent thought it would be great to bring over this plow. Now, nothing against it, I just HATE it.

The first time this showed up at my house, Brent used it on the West side of the garden and in the process, tore up the yard in 3 swipes because the plow didn't raise up, and he ran over my ENTIRE row of rhubarb. The clumps were so large, and the dirt was so heavy and hard, that when I went out to work it over, I literally stood in the garden and CRIED. It seemed like such a monumental job!

Our garden, however, got fixed, and things were planted, including 4 rows of sweet corn (our first attempt). I thought we were done. It was looking good, and then Brent got that sparkle in his eye. That evil glint that I know all too well!

He disappeared one night, and this is what I saw out back...

That horrible neon shirt he was wearing, and that horrible combination of tractor and plow. You see right where he's standing...that's the 16 basil plants, and 9 potato plants just minding their own business.

He got it in his head he was planting more rows of corn, and making a little place where we could nurture some trees and not have to mow around them.

I was starting to shake.

He was smiling that huge Cheshire grin of his.

That front tire was getting too close to my babies!

A little uneven at the end, and too much heavy dirt!

Now really, that's ENOUGH. You've made it big enough! Take the plow back! I can't handle this stress!

I told him I wasn't working the soil over this time, it was his idea, it's his job. He just smiled. I mean it I said!

Last night he brought home a huge tiller mounted on the back of a loader tractor he rented from our neighbor. This I just couldn't watch. I just didn't have the stomach for it.

I hope his joy of watching me fret, combined with his love of all things loud has come to an end for now. I might not make it through the summer!