A GARDEN DRESSED IN WIDOW'S WEEDS

I am a practical minded, common-sense kind of gal, but also a designer and lover of beauty, so often my two sides come into conflict - especially in the garden. Right now my practical side is telling me to just break down and buy a bolt of that floating row cover fabric for my veggie beds. My

neighbor across the creek swears by it. She has raised rectangular beds with hoops over them, and has had them covered with this fabric all season long. She says her gardens have been pretty much pest free because of it. It might even deter the deer.

Unfortunately, my other side is screaming "Not only no, but hay-ill no!" This side of me says think about how many times per day I wander over to the dining porch windows to gaze down upon the garden below, and of how much pleasure I derive from seeing the patchwork of colors, shapes and textures that has formed there. "How much fun would it be," she asks, "to look down upon nothing but rows of dingy white fabric?" So far, she is winning the argument. Guess I'm just not hungry enough. Perhaps the Bountiful Sprout and the local farmers' markets are keeping me too well fed to get properly worked up over having my pole beans ravaged twice in one week - especially when the deer were nice enough to leave that one tiny cucumber that is finally forming on a vine that has sat there doing nothing all summer long, as well as my two plump watermelons and a few peppers that have formed on similarly lethargic plants. I have decided that a nice compromise would be to drape just the pole beans in a bit of bird netting. Of course, this agreement is null and void should the deer ever get greedier, or I get hungrier.

If the netting works, and I finally do get some mature beans, the big question will be, "Can Becky find her way through that tangle of fabric, or will the beans rot on the vine?"