A Tall Truth

Sometimes, when I’m out and about, I run into people who read Over My Garden Gate and they will entertain me with stories of their own gardening successes or misadventures, and the occasional tall tale or two. Or at least I THINK they’re tall tales...

The other day I was speaking with a friend and I asked him how his garden was progressing. Just fine, he said, and went on to tell me that everything was growing like crazy, that the heat was really helping his tomatoes, his early corn was ready, yada, yada, yada. He spoke of the enjoyment he gets from sharing the fruits of his labor with his family, friends, and neighbors. Our conversation went on in this fashion for a while until he made a claim so outrageous I thought I must have misheard. Right after he finished telling me all about his Swiss chard and the new crop of pears, he claimed that he had yet to harvest a single zucchini.

No zucchini, I asked, didn’t you plant any?

He assured me that yes, of course, he had planted zucchini and that his plants would flower, and set fruit; but each time, before he could pick them, some unknown miscreant would come along and steal every last zucchini.

STEAL zucchini.

Seriously. That’s what he claimed. Not his beautiful heirloom tomatoes or his tender corn, but zucchini. The one thing that every gardener I know can’t GIVE AWAY is now being stolen from his garden! I offered, as one possible explanation, that perhaps his neighbors were stealing it as some sort of pre-emptive strike, to keep from having it left on their doorstep or shoved through their open car windows. He looked so hurt I quickly changed my tune and tried to ask him if he called the police, but the thought of someone calling up the police to report stolen zucchini was too much for me to say with a straight face, and I started laughing. Imagine the police report on that one, I gasped.

I don’t actually know if he was pulling my leg or not, but just in case he wasn’t and there really is a zucchini thief among us---BEWARE. My friend has sworn to go full on ninja and protect his precious zucchini!