I always placed gardening in the same category with hunting. Like, what is the point?

I know an otherwise sane person who spends an inordinate time lying in swamps in cold weather waiting for a duck to fly by so he can pulverize the bird with a $3,000 shotgun. I have advised him repeatedly that Shaw’s, Shop ‘n Save and numerous other businesses not only provide the meat for your table, they wrap it carefully in plastic and keep it on ice. You can go there anytime and pick it up, take it home and cook it without the fear that buckshot may break that $800 crown.

Gardening was always the same thing. I saw people working for hours in a bug-infested gardens in the hottest weather, digging in the dirt, fertilizing, planting, weeding, fertilizing some more, watering, then weeding some more. I always told them about Shaw’s and Shop ‘n Save and their wonderful vegetable bins which offered every variety you could ever think of (along with a few you never heard of) in air-conditioned stores at ridiculously low prices, without any bugs biting your ears and eyes.

Then the pansies bloomed.

Cobb Manor came with a cement slab, the last remnant of a Morgan horse farm. After too many years of staring at it, I had it jackhammered and had the remnant turned into a garden wall by a local out-of-work actor. In Camden, out-of-work actors are not hard to find. Last year I took the plunge and ordered a truck full of loam, mostly to fill in the hole left by the removal of the cement slab.

The pile of dirt looked so good that I actually bought a half-dozen tomato plants. While I was in the plant store, the pansies caught my eye as the most colorful product on the shelves. I took a tray of those, too.

Half the tomato plants (Little Girls) were useless. The other half (Big Boys) turned out pretty well – for the crows. Every plump and juicy, fresh-from-the-garden tomato had a crow bite right in the middle. Afraid of the Nile virus or crow fever, I quickly dumped them. The experience only fortified my inclination that gardening was WAY too much work for the benefit gained.

I planned on doing nothing this year but watching the weeds grow. Then the pansies bloomed. I didn’t realize that you got two years out of the flowers and was stunned when their blast of color arrived just in time to greet spring.

I am hooked.

It was back to the plant store for more (Big Boy) tomato plants, to fight with the crows over. I added garlic as something Cobb Manor could use at every meal. I am now considering carrots and onions, beans and leeks, potatoes and squash. And that is just the vegetable family.

Now I have to consider flowers to accompany the lonely pansies.

Now that I think of it, my mother always said I would end up with a bunch of lonely pansies.