The Garlic Files, Part II

The shoots kept growing and growing. Upwards. And not exactly looking like the pictures. And by “not exactly” I mean not even in the slightest way, except that both plants are green and tend to grow. I dug up a few to check out the bulbs. They were shiny with a yellowy cast, not white and papery you see in the supermarket.
“Guess they’re not ready yet,” I figured. In the meantime, I continued boasting to everyone in the tri-state area about what I now termed the “haul of the century.”

As the stalks grew, they shouldered out the weaker, pansyish plants, like my pansies. They were threatening to take over the whole garden in a plant version of the Godfather. I love garlic as much as anyone, but I can’t stand a bully. I had to go to the mattresses. I tore up bunches of them by the stalks and tossed them into big plastic pots.

“There, that’ll contain them.” It was that moment that my neighbor Fran, a garden guru whose yard was a floral wonderland even in winter, full of exotic plants from all over the world, wandered out into her yard to chat. I told her all about my stupendous garlic crop, the likes of which had never been seen in South Philadelphia, or maybe anywhere, ever. I even offered to give her some when I harvested in a few months. I went on and on and on and on and on. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

“Um, Rachel…I really don’t think they’re garlic. They look more like lilies to me – see, I have one over here.” She gestured to a plant in a magnificent faux Etruscan urn that I hadn’t noticed before. It contained a plant that looked suspiciously like my “garlic.”

Oh crap. Fran started to giggle.

“Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah. The couple that lived in your house before had a huge bunch of lilies that used to come up every year, of course, I don’t know if they’ll flower this year since you’ve been moving them around.”

“But, but, they’re everywhere, and what happened to all the bulbs I planted?”

“Oh, well that was probably the squirrels digging them up and moving them around, happens all the time. See this? My daffodils used to be just over here, but now they’re in that other corner and in this pot, oh and I’m sure the squirrels had themselves a nice snack with your garlic bulbs. It was awfully kind of you to put out the smorgasbord like that …”

Of course there were lilies that came up the previous year, I had just forgotten about them. Oh my god. How could I have forgotten a billion yellow and orange lilies? And I had just offered some of the “garlic” to her. I was completely humiliated.

Jim wandered out into the yard to check on the crops. “What’s up?” he asked, seeing Fran giggling and me red-faced.

“Your wife was just telling me all about your garlic. It’s funny, I’ve got some garlic too, see?” She gestured to the urn.
“Mine must be a different varietal though – the kind of garlic that produces suspiciously lily-like flowers.”

They turned to look at me and I knelt there, hands deep in dirt, ignoring them and surrounded by my stalks of lilies. Stuck in the ground in front of the plants was a copper garden stake carefully labeled “Garlic.” Jim began to laugh.

“And she offered it …?” he snorted.
“Yes, and she told me all about its magical properties …” she chortled.
“Do you know how many people she’s told …”
“Honey, you didn’t …”

I admitted nothing. They laughed longer and louder the more I sulked. “Anyway, it was a perfectly natural mistake,” I told myself. All I wanted to do was have a little protection from the mosquitoes. It was really their fault. “Blood-sucking monsters,” I muttered, and stomped past Jim and Fran and into the house. I barely stepped into the garden for the rest of the spring, except to water.
Several months later, I had big trumpet-shaped flowers on my “garlic.” Covered from neck to ankles and doused in “Deep-Woods Off,” I glared at them, unable to enjoy their showy beauty. I had left the stake in the ground in front of them, which clearly read “garlic” in my handwriting. I pulled it out and tossed it into the trash can, then felt my arm begin to itch. It was my first mosquito bite of the season.