All Ground Up

Hi! I'm Amy's garden. Amy is a little obsessed with me, and yes, in a creepy way. Shes stalks my stalks, touching the tomatoes in the most inappropriate way, peering under their leaves, wondering "Are they ripe, reading for the taking?"

She conducts daily inspections of every plant, leaf, and flower, every fennel frond, every watermelon tendril, every sunflower seed. She's looking for progress, for food. I wonder if she stalks her 8th grade students the same way, watch out kids!

I think she is also obsessed with food and eating. I can see her from here, my lowly plot near the earth, just south of the house deck, where she and her husband grill and eat the zucchini. They sit under the rectangle, orange umbrella, sniffing, tasting, talking and frankly, it's a little disconcerting, the jade green zucchini speared to her fork, her eyes wandering toward the pumpkin patch, visually measuring the size of her jack-o-lanterens growing on the second my five tiers.

So, clearly, we have a strange relationship with each other. She, the daily visitor, the planter, the tender, the creator, eater, the ripper. I am waiting to see what she does with me at the end of the summer. Am I only holding on to be devoured, leaf by leaf?