There comes a moment in every gardener’s life when you realize you are not, in fact, “growing vegetables.” You are hosting a highly unregulated outdoor buffet with zero security and a very confident clientele.
This week, I learned that lesson again, because apparently, my Garden of Weeden has decided to expand into the hospitality industry while I was at work.
Chapter 1: “I Regret Having Responsibilities”
I stayed home while the grandkids were playing tee-ball and softball games in Mid-Missouri. Which, for the record, I hate missing. But end-of-year faculty meetings called. August 2026 planning discussions loomed like a slow-moving academic thunderstorm. And somewhere in between debating my general practitioner’s opinions and pretending I am still young enough to recover from lost weekends, I did what any responsible gardener does:
I prepared the garden as if I were leaving it in the care of trained professionals. I watered everything. I secured netting. I stood back and admired my work like a man who had clearly never met a squirrel before. It was beautiful. It was intentional. It was, as it turns out, naïve beyond measure.
Chapter 2: “Welcome to the Petting Zoo”
I returned the next morning to find that my garden had been repurposed. Not damaged. Not lightly disturbed. No. It had been transformed into what I can only describe as: “Petting Zoo: Unsupervised Edition — Now With More Audacity.”
Squirrels. Bunnies. Starlings. And I am fairly certain—though I cannot prove it in a court of law—that Sasquatch’s offspring were on-site, probably running quality control. They had made themselves at home. Comfortable. Confident. Unbothered. Most importantly: hungry.
Two bush bean plants? Gone. Three of my largest tomatoes? Reduced to what can only be described as “architectural remnants.” Not eaten. Not harvested. Curated.
Chapter 3: “The Return of the Gardener (and His Emotional Support Weapon)”
I stood there for a moment in silence, doing the mental math gardeners do when they’re trying to decide between acceptance, resignation, or mild, justified chaos. Then I did what any rational, peace-loving, deeply educated man would do. I went and got the Red Ryder BB gun.
Now let me be very clear: I understand the physics here. I understand the disclaimers. I understand that somewhere a lawyer is already shaking their head. But at that moment, I was no longer a gardener. I was a man defending produce. I opened fire.
And I want to report, with great disappointment and a hint of humiliation, that my opponents were… unimpressed. The bunnies looked back like I had just offered them light entertainment. The squirrels, meanwhile, performed tactical evasive maneuvers that can only be described as: “5–10 yard repositioning followed by aggressive psychological taunting.”
Every BB that landed seemed to communicate the same message: “Sir. Please stop. That tickles.” At one point, I am fairly certain a squirrel paused mid-chew just to judge my technique.
Chapter 4: “You Are Not in Charge Here”
This is the part of gardening they don’t put on the seed packets. They show you tomatoes. They show you lush green rows. They do not show you the moment a squirrel looks you dead in the soul and says: “Nice netting. Would be a shame if someone… went under it.”
Here’s a truth I did not want to learn again this week: The Garden of Weeden is not a controlled environment. It is a negotiation zone. I am apparently negotiating from a position of emotional attachment and mild exhaustion.
Chapter 5: “So What Do You Do?”
After the BB gun diplomacy failed to produce meaningful behavioral change, I was left with the real gardener’s dilemma: How do you protect something that refuses to acknowledge your authority? The answer, I’m learning, is not escalation. It’s infrastructure. It’s motion sprinklers that turn thieves into confused, soggy philosophers.
It’s reinforced netting that slowly transforms your garden into something that looks less like “produce patch” and more like “low-security agricultural prison.” It’s accepting that you are not the sole stakeholder in your harvest. You are, at best, a majority shareholder with no enforcement power.
The Humbling Truth of the Garden
Gardening will do this to you. It will let you believe, for a brief and beautiful moment, that effort equals control. Then it will send in a squirrel with zero respect for your schedule and a bunny that moves like it has insider information. Despite all of it, you still go back out there. You replant. You re-net. You inspect the damage like a battlefield commander trying to pretend this was “part of the plan.”
Because the Garden of Weeden is not really about vegetables. It’s about humility and persistence. Occasionally, ask yourself: “Am I gardening… or am I just feeding the neighborhood wildlife with extra steps?”
Either way, the squirrels are not worried about your answer.
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