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Garden in the City: Won't Get Fooled Again, I'm Breaking Up With Corn

By Patty Wetli | August 14, 2015 10:07am | Updated on August 17, 2015 8:22am

ALBANY PARK — Allow me to momentarily turn things over to my long-suffering spouse.

"Gardening column idea," Dave texted me. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Growing corn in the city, not a good idea."

No, it's not.

It wasn't a good idea last year, which I only learned in hindsight, and it definitely wasn't a good idea this year, when I absolutely knew better.

So, yeah, shame on me. In a repeat of 2014, critters once again decimated my corn before the ears had a chance to ripen.

Patty Wetli may never learn her lesson about planting corn:

Decimated corn. [All photos DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]

These squirrels, rats, raccoons or for all I know, honey badgers, bent stalks under their weight, tore through husks and silk, ripped ears from their moorings and mowed down niblets with a machine-like precision and thoroughness that was both admirable and frightening.

And I did nothing to stop it.

Despite a certain amount of trash talking on my part early in the gardening season — "Bring it on squirrels" — I put forth not one whit of effort to protect my corn. Until it was too late. And not even then.

Here's why: I made the fatal assumption that squirrels have brains.

Not a rodent's pea brain, mind you, but a fully functioning anthropomorphic rat-that-cooks, cricket-that-sings, panda-that-does-kung fu Disney/Pixar brain.

Ergo, mistake No. 1: I thought squirrels would recognize the difference between this year's crop of popcorn and last year's crop of sweet corn. Have you ever seen a squirrel eat popcorn? No? Me, neither. I rest my case.

Ergo, mistake No. 2: I thought squirrels would respect my unilateral work-week ceasefire.

When I noticed on a Monday that some sort of creature had sampled one of my more mature ears, I recognized the action for what it was: A shot over the bow, if you will, a reconnaissance mission to assess my defenses or lack thereof.

Initial sign of critter attack. Oh my, look how pretty that corn would have been.

Having researched counter-insurgent tactics after 2014's debacle, I debated which response to deploy: Bird netting? VHS tape? Plastic cups? Go nuclear with chicken wire?

Some of these options would require a trip to the hardware store and, in the case of the chicken wire, a fair amount of time to construct. Obviously I would need to press pause on hostilities until the weekend while I marshalled my resources.

I conveyed the terms of this temporary armistice telepathically, sending my message out into the garden's ether. Yo, critters, give me a minute to get my act together.

They failed to receive the communique.

I returned to my plot on Tuesday to harvest tomatoes and came upon the scene of destruction described above.

Ears picked clean.

I had left my corn exposed and the enemy had seized upon my naivete — nay, sheer idiocy — and pounced.

Last summer, a similar scene reduced me to hiccuping tears. This go-round, I could only hang my head.

"You knew it was going to happen," Dave said as he witnessed my far less hysterical reaction.

True, the inevitably of the carnage blunted my response. But something also feels different about gardening this year.

I've gone and gotten practical.

In 2014, corn was a grand experiment, a flight of fancy. Before that, there was broccoli and brussels sprouts. Way back in my rookie year, I tried growing melon.

And now? Now, I've started thinking of my garden more like a produce market and less like a laboratory. Everything I've grown, I've harvested — nothing has rotted on the vine. Everything I've harvested, I've eaten — nothing has turned to slime in the "crisper."

I look at the eight square feet I gave over to corn and I think about all the beans I could've had instead.

Fool me thrice? I think not.*

*But I reserve the right to change my mind.

It's hard not to give corn another chance when it's just so pretty.

I mean, how gorgeous is that?

But then this.

And this. #NeverForget

I chopped down what was left of my stalks. At least it can serve as compost.

Vegetable plot, week 13.

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