With the holiday season breathing down our necks, it is time once again for this, my third not-quite-annual wreaking havoc with carols. For you and yours alone, I have taken great liberties – although if you look online so has everyone else – with that old favorite “O Christmas Tree” to bring you this ode to gardening: “O Garden Mine.”

So tune up the pitchfork, gather round the mulberry bush and cover the kiddies’ ears, because the tannenbaum ain’t what it used to be.

From me to you, happy holidays.

O poinsettia plant,

O poinsettia plant,

How festive are your leafy bracts.

O poinsettia plant,

O poinsettia plant,

Here are some horticulture facts.

You come to us from Mexico,

Where you get rain,

But not much snow.

O poinsettia plant,

O poinsettia plant,

Don’t go outside and freeze your bracts.

O brown hemp twine,

O brown hemp twine,

In any gauge, the knots are strong.

O brown hemp twine,

O brown hemp twine,

I bet it would hold old King Kong.

I use it for the green bean vines,

It costs so much,

But works real fine.

O brown hemp twine,

O brown hemp twine,

I’d like a full lifetime supply.

O compost pile,

O compost pile,

How rotten are those kitchen scraps.

O compost pile,

O compost pile,

Nature’s form of a chocolate frappe.

Could it be nutrients so rich

That make veggies

So lush and fit?

O compost pile,

O compost pile,

Let’s turn old leaves and toss the mix.

O Santa Claus,

O Santa Claus,

Have you seen the seed catalogs?

O Santa Claus,

O Santa Claus,

I want it all. So I’m a hog?

Greenhouse, grow lights, a mushroom log,

Winter is long,

And time will plod.

O Santa Claus,

O Santa Claus,

Please think gift card and not eggnog.

Janine Pineo’s e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.