If you are still following this rambling manure I am writing, and haven't gotten off doing other summer time things, you are most likely a Garden Addict. You don't even try to hide it, displaying larger numbers of annuals, still expanding beds while the neighbors shake their heads. "Look at that! They are STILL planting more stuff! They must be crazy."

You and I both know it isn't craziness. Well, wait, yes, I guess it is. But the good kind, right? Like the out-of-the-box, connected-to-the-Earth, it-makes-me-crazy-happy-to-tend-my-garden crazy.

Like take for instance weeding. I love weeding. No one ever wants to help me, so I get quality alone time. In the sunshine, or like Maureen, even in the rain, doing what I love to do best- gardening. Crazy? I think not.

Or yesterday when I wacked off the biggest head of perfect broccoli I have ever grown. I believe I squealed out loud.

Or bringing home ANY plant and getting a giddy feeling dreaming of what it will look like in a few years as it gets established.

Turning another on to gardening makes me joyful to my toes.

I have learned that it is perfectly acceptable to eat Peanut Butter for a week to make up the $ needed for a new (take a deep breath...) big container I spied while going thru our greenhouse to hold the Japanese Maple that we just unloaded off the truck that will look PERFECT in my garden. Ok, so I self-taught and accepted that myself, but hey, "love thyself", huh? We have been over this- I don't buy jewelry- and it's not like I am eating Ramen noodles for a week straight.

So I came up with a 12 step program for any of you trying to break out of this gardening addiction. Good Luck- there is no way I can make it past "My name is Erica, and I am a Garden Addict." I gotta have it. I need it. I want it. Please, give me more!!!

#1- Don't notice butterflies. Flying, basking or sipping nectar. All butterflies are off limits.

#2- Quit delighting in fragrant blossoms. Do NOT stop to "smell the roses".

#3- Stop enjoying fresh air. Stay inside. Do not stop to hear wind blowing in pine trees.

#4-Relinquish any need for ripe tomatoes, especially sunshine-warm, fresh picked from your garden.

#5- Cease looking for "one more plant to fill in". You have enough.

#6- Tell your car to quit driving you to Highland Gardens. Disable the GPS auto-pilot.

#7- Avoid other gardeners. They will only enable you.

#8- Keep clear of fresh basil plants. And any other herbs you can snip fresh from your own garden. (Especially in combination with #4.)

#9-Shun the idea your thumb really has turned green.

#10- Deny yourself from watching hummingbirds. Especially when they fly backwards or do their mating acrobatics.

#11- Decide that earthworms and the smell of dirt disgusts you.

#12- At all costs, stay away from newly opened flowers in your garden.  

 OR:

Accept and Rejoice that you are a big ole plant nerd. Yay for the glory of Nature and gardening!!

Happy Day! ~Plant geek-nerd, Erica