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"So, where's your actual garden?" asked Wayne Kleberson. "This looks like a 20-foot square of weeds." We were walking past my back garden as I took the dog Mateja Kezman for a walk.

I hadn't asked Wayne for his opinion but with his newly acquired university degree, he now feels qualified to comment on anything. It was true that my garden did need the ministrations of a hoe and a rake, not to mention a few weeds pulled, but it wasn't as bad as all that. You could see the tops of two tomato plants and six rows of carrots were in there somewhere. Wayne is a nit-picker; looking at the bright side, there probably weren't many nits in my garden.

The garden to which I refer is one of two and is called ‘the back garden'. It holds carrots, the tomato plants, and - somewhere - a couple of cucumber plants. The front garden which is located near the house and near Manse Hill Road holds more carrots, two rows of peas, two rows of french beans, onions, two types of lettuce, and two rows of early potatoes. I till between the beds so that at least you can tell it's a garden and not ‘a 20-foot square of weeds'. (Since it's 30 feet square.)

Note: I write this column on gardening because Bertha Twintwaddle of Medford asked me to stop writing about the weather, potholes, and politics - which is another form of pothole - and write about something more interesting - like Icelandic rug weaving or even gardening. She added: "Will you please use only Imperial measures? Curse that Pierre Trudeau anyway."

Wayne was trying to embarass me, but it didn't work. The next morning I was sitting on my front porch and sipping on a lemonade while gazing across at the windmills on Mars Hill Mountain; I planned to weed my gardens, but not just then. The lawn needed mowing too, but I knew my wife would soon either mow it or hire a crew.

It was then I saw the Colorado Potato Beetle gnawing away at a dahlia plant right in front of me. A little to the left, another CPB was manfully trying to get sustenance from a daylily. It was then that the shame hit me; my potato plants were so hidden by weeds that even the specialists couldn't find them. I resolved to start weeding them. After another glass of lemonade, I was ready to start that tedious job. I put on sunscreen while watching a Red Green episode and promptly fell asleep in my easy chair. When I awoke the garden was still waiting.

As to my two rows of potatoes, the one from peelings was doing great, but the row where I had planted the whole seed potatoes had hardly any plants showing. That ‘shows to go you', as grampy used to say. Then I went out to that back garden and started weeding the carrot beds. Lo and behold (as Hiram Kinney used to say), there were three large ‘volunteer' potato plants from last year's crop and every one was blossomed. There was even a striped CPB on one of them. I recognized it too, from the dahlia plant.

Just as for insects, there are good weeds and bad weeds (as my late mother used to call me). The good weeds pull out nicely and don't rip up half your garden but the bad weeds have root systems the size of soccer fields even if the weed itself is only two inches tall. As to garden pests, I didn't see many of them except for Flug's nephew Glucose who walked by on his way to an Extasy party or something. As far as blackflies go - which is not far from me - I have a rule of thumb to deal with them. If I manage to get one of them under my thumb I crush it. Since there is one fly for every square inch of exposed flesh it is quite a task.

After about four hours of weeding I looked toward the road to see an SUV going by. Rich people I guessed. On the side of it was the painting of a huge grizzly. I decided to go in for a lemonade. My wife, who was painting the house, said: "You've only been out there 10 minutes; why are you back so soon?"

"I saw a bear," I explained.

She wanted to see what I had done. We walked to the scene of my recent toils. "So, where's your actual garden?" she asked.

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Bob's website: http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/lafrance/index.htm