Let me start out with this disclaimer: This post is not photo-centric.  Instead,  it is a tale of what can happen when recruiting little garden mates.

A few days ago I deemed it necessary to call in the recruits, a.k.a. garden mates, to help with some necessary garden tasks.

We are preparing for an extended camping trip and with it being pretty early in our growing season, there is still much to be done in the garden.  Feeling the pressure of the upcoming departure date, I gathered the young garden mates and explained they would be spending the next day without friends or other fun entertainment.  They would be dedicated to weeding one of the vegetable garden areas so I could work on other tasks that needed to be finished before our vacation.

They reluctantly agreed.

The next day arrived and the garden mates got an early start to the day.  They had come to the realization if they got their job done early there could still be time for swimming with friends. So in the morning, while I was away photographing a local garden, they got busy weeding.

When I arrived home a few hours later they were proud to tell me they had finished the job.  I quizzed them on whether they used their spades and dug the root out or just “popped the top off.”  They assured me they dug out the roots and did a “really good job” getting all the weeds, putting them in buckets and throwing them into an unused area behind the fence.  I  was pleased with their initiative and told them they could go swimming.

Later that day, I cruised through the vegetable garden and noticed they had indeed done a good job of weeding. Way to go girls, not a little green weed in sight!

But wait a minute.  Something seems to be missing. Where’s my artichoke?  I looked, looked again and sure enough my artichoke that had just begun to grow well was gone.

I knew what had happened immediately and headed behind the fence.  I searched amongst the weeds until I found the little artichoke (roots and all) in the pile.  At this point it had been lying in the hot sun for about 3 hours but I decided to try to resuscitate it.  I re-planted it but the verdict is still out on whether it is going to survive.

The message of this tale…don’t send young garden mates out to weed unsupervised.  They might do too good of a job and you’ll come up one (or more) short!