Well, today I got a good look at what I now laughingly call “the veggie garden,” and I couldn’t find it. I know where it is, because there is a fence around it, but it looked exactly like every other patch of weeds (yes, we have patches of weeds). I could not believe how fast the weeds had grown when I wasn’t watching, but, since I really do have veggie seeds to plant, something had to be done.

Weeds are insidious things – since they don’t have to produce anything for anyone else, they can just grow like . . .  well, like weeds.

Down here in Costa Rica, people come along and use a weed whacker on them, but the true gardener knows that is not the answer. To get rid of a weed, you have to pull or dig it out by the roots, shake off the dirt (cussing at it helps), and take it away. And, it’s best to do all that before it goes to seed. By the time you realize it is flowering and about to set seeds, six other flowers have already sent seeds into the wind. It is enough to drive a gardener crazy.

So now something has to be done about the veggie garden. Maybe tomorrow or when the rain stops. Wait, how about I get my gardener to do it? That’s it! Then I can go back to lazing around.

Plant for the week. Right now, color and blooms are being represented by Dendrobium orchids, also known as the Cooktown orchid, which is a medium to large, hot-growing, green or reddish-purple-stemmed plant with 3 to 12 egg-shaped leaves.. Pinkish-mauve to lavender, purple, and sometimes almost white, they feature wide, overlapping inner and outer flakes and darker-colored lips. They can be found growing in forests on the branches of trees or on the rocks. It is a very popular orchid for its ease of cultivation.

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Find more interesting stories about gardening in Costa Rica on the AM Costa Rica Garden page. Questions on this article, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached by emailing victoriatorley1@gmail.com
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