Nighttime Gardening

I love it – beginning the first time I planted shrubs and tomatoes, I enjoyed the quiet. So, I’ve continued the routine here – slipping out  of the air-conditioning, around ten or eleven PM and hand watering the plants the sprinkler can’t reach. But I am mindful of the unique critters in Texas – the squirrels, slugs and mosquitoes are about the same, but they do have rats, geckos, fire ants and scorpions.  (No bare feet!)

Last night I met a critter;  what it was I am not sure.

My darling husband reminded me, after I described the experience, there’s an old saying down here in Texas: don’t reach your hand in where your eyes can’t see.  And I thought briefly about this wise saying as I slipped my fingers into the large pot of blooming impatience to see how dry the soil really was, after another day of triple digits. Imagine how quickly I removed them as the tips barely brushed a firm, slick ball.

Yuck . . . yes I yelped – but I kept watering, and squirting my hand; the lingering sliminess suggested I had perhaps petted a slug.  A-r-r-r-r-r-g-h.

·      Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.  ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

·      A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.  ~May Sarton