Feral Friday: This Is Not a Hobby, It’s a Cry for Help
(& Also Dinner Until 2028)
Some people have nervous breakdowns in the wine aisle. I apparently lose my mind in the garden section, because here we are.
I blacked out at a seed catalog one day back in January and somehow woke up in June with what can only be described as agricultural sprawl in my backyard. This is no cutesy little couple containers on the back porch. No. This is full-on rogue farm status. My HOA version of manifest destiny.
My dining table was no longer a dining table throughout February. It was a grow-op. A chlorophyll altar. A shrine to my unhinged hope covered in seedlings and grow lights.
Then when warm temps hit, and like a fool high on photosynthesis and dopamine, I made the fateful trip to Home Depot. I just needed potting soil. Maybe a trellis. I should’ve brought a chaperone.
But instead: Panic! At the Home Depot.
I blacked out again. Came to in the backyard, surrounded by dirt, trellises, and dreams far too big for my garden square footage.
We’re talking:
16 tomato plants (because apparently I thought I was opening a farmers market stall)
4 pepper plants (the mild-mannered cousins trying to keep the peace)
6 types of basil, yes SIX TYPES, not six plants (I have literally lost count… this is now a full-blown pesto cartel)
4 cucumber plants (because hydration is key, right?)
A lettuce bed so vast it could host its own Coachella
Arugula and endive because I needed fancy salad greens.
And then there’s the obscure herbs lineup: white sage, orange thyme, pineapple sage, garlic chives, borage, chervil, and fennel (which I don’t even like… someone please explain)
And because apparently I’m just a girl standing in front of a garden, asking the bees to love her, I also grew marigolds, verbena, calendula and zinnias to sweet-talk the pollinators into sticking around.
I have zero acreage. No farmhands. No backup plan. Just a wildly overambitious (or delusional) person and a suspiciously fertile patch of dirt.
Listen. At the time it felt like self-care. Gardening! Mental health hobby! Vitamin D! Now the whole yard is giving Farmville if it had a mental health crisis storyline.
And now? Now everything is thriving. Like, really thriving. Like I don’t know how to eat all this thriving. The tomatoes are climbing like they help pay the mortgage. The basil has declared itself CEO of the herb kingdom. The peppers have unionized. The cucumbers are plotting world domination. The herbs are throwing a chlorophyll-fueled rave and DGAF who they’re crowding out. And the flowers? They’re out here doing their best “please pollinate me” fierce runway walk.
Everything is growing so much faster than I can even emotionally process.
But here’s the real question: how in the world am I going to eat all this?
And what am I doing these days? Pacing the yard like someone’s Mammaw in a dirt-stained nightgown, whispering “WTF have I done?”
I could seriously become the Tony Soprano of backyard Sunday sauce.
So. Here’s what we’re going to do:
I’m hosting a dinner party once these peppers and tomatoes ripen.
Maybe two or three depending on the crops.
Bring your appetite, your Tupperware, and your best stories and sense of humor.
Locals, file in below for an invite.
