It’s Never Too Early to Think About Springing Into the Garden

Spring is just around the corner!  We have been growing green beans ourselves in the spare bedroom for weeks due to impatience and also as an excuse to obsess continuously about buying a French bean slicer. Gardening has become one of America’s favorite pastimes. It’s become even more of a favorite mild weather activity than Flaming Lawn Dart Toss or sticking your fingers into the bug zapper on a dare. Anyhow, our special guest this weekend, The Green Gardener, will now offer our readers inexpert advice, all the while giving you some real dirt.



Dear Green Gardener: 
Can you recommended a vine that I could grow on the fire escape outside my apartment window this spring to keep that total perv from across the street from always looking in? He’s not as bad as my neighbor who looks like John Wayne Gacy with cracked corn for teeth, but he freaks me out nonetheless. – One Hot Biotch, NY, NY 



Dear One Hot:  
As you are trying to deflect the attentions of a creep, I’m going to suggest you go with a creeper: the Virginia Creeper, of course! It occurs naturally throughout remaining U.S. forests, but you probably can even locate some at a rest stop along the turnpike. It should be easy to find time to dig one up during rush hour when you come to a bottleneck. A rapid climber, and highly drought resistant, it can thrive and subsist throughout the summer with only an occasional spray of hobo urine. Poison ivy can make a nice companion planting to deter any unwanted pop-in guests who might be fleeing from law enforcement down your alleyway as well.

Dear Green Gardener: 
I’m looking for a more natural approach to controlling fungal rot on my Zinnias this year. The last stuff I sprayed turned out to be like Agent Orange or something, and now the kid from next door who fell into them has stopped riding his skateboard and still hasn't stopped twitching.
 L.B. – Baltimore, MD

Dear L.B.:
 There is nothing more frustrating than a fungus among us. When I think “anti-fungal,” naturally the first remedy that pops into my mind would be Melaleuca Alternifolia, or the Australian "Tea Tree." Why, Tea Tree even treats thermoyeastum vulgaramus! The most potent and effective forms of Tea Tree must be extracted from the actual living tree in the Australian outback. If you audition for one of those reality survivalist TV shows, you may garner an all expense paid trip to make your harvest.  You may also be offered large sums of money to show your private parts regularly in magazines, or at the very least, have TMZ catch your crotch on camera while getting out of a limo. Of course, your Zinnias will probably be dead by that time as they’re annuals. Our bad.

Dear Green Gardener: 
How do I get the Venus Fly Trap on my desk to grow into one of those type of “Little Shop of Horrors” monsters to eat that hillbilly wench who sits behind me who won’t stop taking about her kids? - Shut the Hell Up Already, Parkersburg, WVA

Dear Shut:
 I believe feeding your hungry little office plant steroids would be the best answer. I would go with something like THG, or tetrahydrogestrinone. Although it’s now detectible in track and field athletes and major league baseball players, it has yet to be unmasked in carnivorous plants and you can likely find it on the Internet. Be assured that office authorities are unlikely to investigate the disappearance of the big-mouthed bumpkin as they will be too distracted by their newfound ability to hear themselves think.

Coming up in future installments:  “Backyard Terrorism for Dummies or West Nile Virus Mosquito Farming,” and “Slugs: Suburban Escargot?”