Gardening Tips from Millie and Sven

Here we are already thinking of planting our gardens. I don't know about you but my leaves are still in my yard from last fall and my snow shovel is still leaning against the garage.  But this is Wisconsin.  If you take Wisconsin, where winter never really ends and multiply that by having no organizational skills,  no regard for directions,  a sudden surge of spring fever due to all those flower huts popping up everywhere and then Mother's Day on top of it, you are S.O.L.  You might as well give in and plant your freaking garden. I am writing this blog for those of you who adore gardens, dirt, flowers, green houses, herbs, words like herbs and watering cans, but do not have the patience, the know how and or the patience to aquire the know how to garden, but you jump into it every year with as much zeal as a gambler walking into a Casino and smelling the tables or a junkie who just scored a bag of something that is real bad. As a master of horrifying flower and vegetable gardens and a writer, I feel as though it is my calling to keep you not only informed as to how to fool the average guy who could give a shit about your garden but also how to cope with your basic underlying gardening inabilities. In another week or two, Sven and I will begin our annual gardening saga.  It's always the same.  Where to put it, what to plant, when to water and what to do with all that stuff that NEVER grows.  It's hard to know when to toss things that almost come to life but then never really do.  It's about knowing when to take them off of life support.  Always a tough decision.

Gardening Tips from Millie and Sven

1)      Make sure to make plans for a teeny-tiny garden situated right next to your door and right next to a water faucet (This is a good plan for the non-committal type like me who will lose interest after the flower huts go away.) 2)      Always till your teeny-tiny garden. (And when I say till the teeny-tiny garden, I mean overturn last years weeds and smash them with the shovel into little pieces so that only dirt is showing on the top and last years weeds are facing down.) 3)   Bedazzle your garden with garden ornaments. (These can be found in all garden centers and in some garage sales and will fool both the beginning gardener and the non-gardener’s eye at first glance.) 4)      Be sure to purchase those colorful upside down baskets for your tomato plants so they can climb them in your teeny-tiny garden or else place them on your deck as if your garden is too full of other stuff (even if the tomatoes croak, those baskets are gorgeous and from afar you cannot tell if they are tomato vines or Creeping Charlie vines growing in there.) 5)      Always set colorful watering cans (full of water so they do not blow away) on your deck as if you were about to water your garden, but you had to run off for an emergency or at least to answer your phone. 6)       Set up a DO NOT DIG sign in your garden with a picture of your dog on it or else his name, so that any unexpected company will assume that the hole in the middle of your garden is the fault of the owners shit-ass dog and not the fault of the shit-ass owner who can't train his dog not to dig holes or even how to read a damn sign. 7)      Support your local business and buy veggies from that guy at that stand right down the road and always keep them in a wicker basket on your kitchen table. (Don't worry about the fruit flies.  They are safer and carry less bacteria than ticks and or mosquitos.) 8)      When in public always join in the bitching by nodding your head in agreement about being knee deep in a surplus of tomatoes, zucchini and peppers. 9)      Always carry a decorative hand bag on your person and stuff it with as many of the free veggies set up in the break room as possible. 10)  Never shy away from any cussing about all the canning that you and your acquaintances are once again forced into. And seriously, never can anything, unless you are a better canner than gardener. JOIN ME EACH WEEK FOR GARDEN  UPDATES, TIPS AND PICTURES FROM THE MILLIE AND SVEN GARDEN OF 2014. Perhaps you would like to add a few tips of your own. Disclaimer:  The picture on this post does not depict Millie and Sven's garden.  I found it on the internet.