Let’s forget for a moment that my garden currently looks like a knot of vines and plants.

Rather, let’s start looking at this as an experiment with varying results.

If nothing else it will make me feel better about the creation I’m calling a garden.

This week, I thought I would take some time to update you on the status of said garden. More than a few of you have been interested [or entertained — different sides of the same coin] in the progress of this first-year stumble in botany.

In short, it’s turned into a disaster.

Not a complete disaster. We’ve been eating cherry tomatoes every day, have had more than a few cucumbers, the tomatoes are starting to trickle in and the beans are on the way.

But it’s been those last two things that have also really contributed to the state of my garden today. A giant mess of rising stalks, groping vines and perhaps, in the end, a new variety of produce I’m wittingly calling the tomean.

We need to rewind a few weeks though and maybe some of you will remember one of my biggest rookie mistakes. I planted too many things in too small of a space and it quickly erupted into a vegetable free-for-all.

The tomato plants were getting large and unwieldy, growing well beyond the small cages I bought. The beans were reaching out to try and strangle everything. Instead of a bush plant I got the vine because I wasn’t paying attention to the packaging.

And just before I went on vacation the cucumbers were starting to spread dangerously close to everything.

Like a sailer on the sea, I saw the storm clouds on the horizon.

Still, I felt pretty confident, knowing I would have a forest of weeding to do when I got back, even though I had been pretty good on weeding up to vacation.

We came back on a Saturday and noticed something strange about the garden, almost immediately. Suddenly it didn’t seem so -— tall. The reason? The tomato plants were all on their sides except two of them.

So, I uttered a word I won’t print here and examined the damage after we unpacked and before dealing with a partial power outage due to a smoldering utility box down the street.

Welcome back, right?

The good news was that the tomatoes were producing. I had several big ones on the vine, just waiting to turn. The downside was they had grown too big with no real support.

But there was also something else. The bean plants had finally achieved their goal of getting their entwining vines around the plants themselves and through some effort, had helped pull the tomatoes over.

It was now a ground and pound wrestling match between two garden heavy weights.

The fallout was readily evident. I now have a great big pile of tangled vines and tomatoes. I ended up having to pull the rest of the beets as they were not getting any sun. The carrots were pulled earlier than I wanted because now the cucumbers were starting to get involved. Even though I gave them an out by planting in the corner an letting them spill over the side. Apparently, they are plants with a strong sense of justice when the others are being caught in the middle of a veggie free-for-all.

Unfortunately, the carrots were in direct line of crawl of the cucumbers. In the cucumber’s sense of policing the garden they were going to over-run the carrots.

It was quickly turning into a vegetarian crisis that may or may not need NATO intervention in the end.

Sadly, somewhere in that mess remains a pepper a plant, lost to the march of warring plants. Please take a moment and send your thoughts to this brave, brave plant.

Okay, so the garden is a glorified mess, but not a waste. Like I’ve said, we have produce and it’s delicious. And I’ve learned some lessons about next year, starting with beans, tomatoes and cucumbers will not be planted in the same basic spot.

We will get trestles for the beans so perhaps they will play nice with the rest of the plants.

We will expand the garden slightly to accomodate all the plants in a new arrangement and perhaps we won’t buy quite so many tomato plants. For one, I’m not sure two people can handle this many tomatoes, but I’m also not entirely sure we have enough to can so I guess the neighbors could come out winners in this arrangement.

The peppers are getting moved out completely to a different spot. I’m tired of watching the poor little guys getting beat up.

But perhaps the biggest lesson learned is not to brag about how well your garden is doing early on, because there is just no accounting for jerk plants. It also turns out to be fairly humbling.

One should never be out-thought by plants.

On an ending note: To the reader (Reader No. 5 maybe?) that stopped in while I was away who invited me out to see your garden, please know I’m not ignoring you. At some point, when things slow down a bit, I would love to come out and see your garden set-up.

Thank you for your offer and I will hopefully be in contact soon.