OUR YUCAIPA | MARCH 2016 11
I'm not a fan of gardening. How many tomatoes can one family eat
really? They seem to be the only thing that will grow in my Chapman
Heights backyard. The snails eat everything else. The one and only
time I tried to grow vegetables every leaf was covered in their pesky
little bite marks. It was so maddening! I tried everything to keep them
away. The poisonous pellets, the bowls of nearby beer, any old wives
tale I came across.
Of course in the daylight I never actually saw any pests on my plants.
They're sneaky little bastards.
At one point I actually considered camping out by the garden,
catching those evil snails in the act, plucking them from my plants and
chucking them through the fence. But sleeping outside? Nah. There's
dirt out there. Another thing I don't like about gardening. Dirty nails
and muddy knees? Yuck. Plus it hurts my back leaning over like that.
My garden would need to be waist high, expertly designed by a master
woodworker, and if I could hire him, I could probably afford to just buy
organic vegetables at Vons.
It's all too much hassle, so I picked my gobs of tomatoes, let the snails
win and never gardened again. That'll show 'em.
But for those of you who don't mind snails, mud, back pain, and BLTs
every day for three months, there's a nice little story about gardening in
Yucaipa on the following pages. My boss made me write it.
She doesn't garden either.
