Well. It's Tuesday. The plants have organized. I went to the greenhouse at quarter past eight, With a watering can and a sensible fate. The door came unhinged and the handle fell through, And a spider moved in to my gardening shoe. I picked up a pot with a crack in its side, The bottom fell out and the dirt took a ride. It landed quite neatly inside of my boot, Along with a worm and a questionable root. I planted the beans in a perfectly straight row, They've grown in a circle. I don't care to know. The carrots are sideways, the onions are blue, And something's been chewing my gardening glue. Oh, everything's growing wrong, The short things are tall and the tall things are gone. The roses have thorns where the blossoms should be, And a cucumber's climbing the old apple tree. I measure, I water, I weed and I prune, The pumpkins are flowering three months too soon. I've followed the book since the day I was born, But the garden appears to have read something wrong. The tomatoes are stubborn, refusing to blush, The lettuce has bolted and fled through the brush. The peppers are mild when they're meant to be hot, And the mint has annexed every inch of the plot. I carried a tray of begonias inside, And tripped on a hose that I'd carefully tied. The seedlings went flying, the labels went too, Now I've twelve little mysteries. Possibly two. The basil's a cabbage. I'm fairly certain. The watering nozzle came off in my hand, And watered my trousers instead of the land. The wheelbarrow tipped with a terrible groan, And buried the rake that I'd just bought on loan. A snail ate my prize-winning marigold flat, Then sat on the stump like a well-satisfied cat. I asked him politely to move down the lane. He blinked once, then waited for more of the rain. Oh, everything's growing wrong, The short things are tall and the tall things are gone. The peas have escaped through a hole in the screen, And the radishes look like they've never been green. I measure, I water, I weed and I prune, The squash has developed a mind of its own. I've followed the book, every page, every line, But the garden has clearly developed a spine. By Thursday the greenhouse was dripping with rain, A leak in the roof had come back once again. I patched it with tape and a bucket of clay, The bucket fell over. The tape blew away. I stood in the wreckage and studied the scene, A kingdom of compost and things that were green. And there, by the doorway, beneath all the mess, One little flower was blooming, no less. A weed, naturally. Oh, everything's growing wrong, And somehow I've loved it all along. The beans may be crooked, the cabbages small, The tomatoes may never turn red after all. I'll measure, I'll water, I'll weed and I'll prune, I'll come back tomorrow at quarter past noon. For gardens, like people, are stubborn and strange, And neither responds very well to a change. Well. At least the weeds are healthy. Very healthy.