@!^%#

See the two vehicles in this picture?  My garden is between them and behind them about 100 feet. 

See the field?  A farmer rented this field from Nanny a few weeks ago.  Last Saturday, he planted soybeans using the "no-till" method.  The next day, he came back and sprayed broadleaf grass killer.  He told Nanny that he would spray low to the ground, and it would not damage anything in her yard.

The following Tuesday, this is how my corn looked:

The cucumbers and squash got a dose, too.

I was madder than a hornet.

Thankfully, the big shed and a smaller tool shed blocked the spray from most of the garden, but some of the chemical drifted through a gap between the tool shed and the tree line.  The entire rows of squash, cucumbers, and corn got it, all the way to the far end of the garden.  It looks like these plants are going to survive, but I'm still mad.  And the worst may be yet to come.  Once the beans sprout, he's planning to come back with Round-Up in his tank.  I don't know what to do to protect my garden, except to stretch black plastic across the "gap," and judging from how far the first herbicide drifted, this tactic may not be enough.

* * * * * *

"You're up mighty early," Nanny called from the back porch a few seconds after I walked past her kitchen window this morning. 

"I'm trying to hit the garden before the sun does," I said.  My plan was to chop around the plants, run the tiller up the middles, and then do some serious watering.  I went to the tool shed, grabbed my favorite hoe, and started chopping weeds on the pepper row.  A few minutes later, I looked up to find Nanny working among the cucumbers.  Together we made pretty short work of the squash and cucumber rows.  Nanny started on the corn rows while I went to drag the tiller out of the shed.

"How big does corn have to be before it can be laid by?" Nanny asked me as I was gassing up the tiller.

"I don't know," I said.  "What does 'laid by' mean?"

"It means we can quit chopping it."

"Oh.  Well, I think that corn can be laid by the day after Memorial Day," I told her.  Since today is Memorial Day, it brought us both a measure of relief.

About an hour later, The Husband showed up and offered to finish the tilling.  I let him, and started laying out the soaker hose among the cucumbers.  By the time I finished laying out the hoses and getting the water going, he'd finished the tilling and had picked up the hoe that I'd laid aside.  In a few minutes, I heard Nanny call to The Husband, "I see you over there, leaning on your hoe in the shade."  Before either of us could respond, she added, "Oh my goodness...I just heard my mama talking."

"You sounded just like her," The Husband said.

I did not know Grandmaw, so I wisely kept my mouth shut.

But I looked up a few minutes later, and caught them both leaning on their hoes in the shade.

It took me about two more hours to finish the watering.  During this time, I sank in the mud as I moved the soaker hoses from row to row.  It's a miracle I got out with my shoes.