This Is What The Garden Looks Like in Sweatpants

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I had the week off. A full week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. A gift from the calendar gods to finally clean up the garden.

So naturally, by the end of it, the community garden was still 75% weeds.

Not regular, easygoing weeds either. These were knee-high, street gang weeds. The kind that rattle when you walk by them and whisper things like she’ll never make it to the tomatoes.

Weeding and Snake Watch, 2025 Edition

The central path alone looked like a prime location for a Discovery Channel documentary titled Urban Snake Encounters: Plot 42. So I dropped my wicker basket and just started pulling.

And just to validate my paranoia—while weeding that path, I found a snakeskin. A big one. At least a 72-footer. Possibly longer. Definitely recent.

The good news? The giant weeds were relatively easy to pull. It’s one of gardening’s small mercies: the more menacing the weed, the easier it comes out. Like it knows it’s overplayed its hand.

That’s 40 minutes of panic-yanking in 37C (98F).

I know you want proof of snake. You seem the type.

Tomatoes: Now Accessible Without Emergency Services

Once the main drag was snake-free, I weeded around my two rows of paste tomatoes so I could reach them without needing a tetanus booster.

This required crawling into the tomato jungle, which had become a kind of mosquito-run speakeasy, and removing enough weeds to see the ground again. I then performed what is known in the gardening world as the Florida Weave, which sounds like a hairstyle you’d get on spring break but is actually a system for keeping tomato plants from collapsing like drunk tourists.

To do it properly, you hammer a stake between every single tomato plant, and then you weave string back and forth along the row like you’re lacing up a 20-foot corset for vegetables.

By the end, the tomatoes were upright and supported. I, on the other hand, had lost 40% of my blood to mosquitos and was being circled by what I think was a turkey vulture.

Finally, I Looked Around

It's my rule, that when I go to the garden the very first thing I do is weed. I don't look around, I don't assess, I drop down and and start pulling for at least 15 minutes, or whatever is necessary. This day it was 3 hours before I could take a look around at what was growing and what was hiding.

Kidney Beans – Thriving like they own the place.

Pole Beans & Cucumbers – Finally deciding to be vines instead of freeloading ground cover. I was impressed they all found the pea netting to scramble up on their own without help from me. Obviously.

Corn – Two types: Serendipity (sweet eating corn) and Glass Gem (ridiculously pretty). Both looking solid.

Leeks & Vidalias – Technically there. Possibly in witness protection. Hidden under an enthusiastic lawn of grassy weeds.

Rutabaga – Growing confidently... in the middle of a weed thicket.

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Strawberry Cages – Done for now. I assume because they took one look at the terrifying weed patch outside the cage and opted out.

Broccoli & Cauliflower – Safely under netting, the main broccoli and cauliflower heads have already been harvested and turned into soup. What’s left will now sprout hopeful little side shoots.

Cabbage – Unreasonably large.

Potatoes - To the right of the netted cabbage are the potatoes, which are going strong, but not for long if I don't get the Colorado potato beets all squished and accounted for.

Garlic – Ready to come out. Crispy tops, telltale papery rustle. Will require a shovel, a firm grip, and a lot of trunk space.

This isn't the whole garden, but it's some of the worst areas I thought I'd show you while it was a wreck otherwise you might not see the garden at all this year.

You'll still get your complete look at my vegetable garden with everything I've planted, but I have to get it weeded so you can actually see what's growing.

That's how it works.

Afterwards I went home looking like I’d crawled out of a dust bowl-era barn collapse.

Ten minutes after walking in the door like this, I discovered that my hot water tank was broken.

Which felt right. Somehow. Like the day wouldn’t be complete without a final inconvenience to really tie the whole experience together.

The Hot Water Tank Betrayal

I came home looking like I’d been dragged behind a farm implement so I really needed to get clean. I decided to take a shower even though there was no hot water. I'd overcome greater inconveniences than luke warm water in my lifetime.

I've picked maggots out of a chickens bum - in the very same shower as it happens.

I turned on the water and tested it with my hand. Not freezing. Not glacier-fed. I could do this.

I was as determined as someone covered in bug guts and soil could be. I gave myself a pep talk. I told myself it would be refreshing. It was 100 degrees out. I was dizzy from heat. I stepped one foot into the shower.

Just cold enough to be unacceptable to the human nervous system.

The cold water touched the top of my knee and my body tried to exit the bathroom using only my legs. One leg spun forward, the other one shot backwards, and for a brief moment I was tap dancing like a goat on roller skates. I just kept skidding in place while my brain tried to decide whether to die or yell.

Eventually, I managed to grab the shower curtain for stability, which ripped immediately, because it was from a hardware store that also sells inflatable flamingos.

I got out of the tub. I towelled off the part of my leg that made contact with the water. I stood there for a long time, thinking about how plumbing had once been my friend. Not today.

That day, face cloths, baby wipes and distance were my friends.

The worst part is I’ll do it all again tomorrow. The weeds I pulled are already growing back. The tomatoes need more weaving. The rutabaga are still fighting for their lives. And somewhere, the snake is probably showing off it's shiny new skin. Which required no hot water at all.