Monthly Archives: February 2025

Breaking Bad (Backs): Why Gardening Is Overrated

Ah, retirement. The golden years. The time when you finally get to kick back, relax, and absolutely wreck your spine trying to grow a tomato that birds will eat before you do.

Somewhere along the line, society decided that once you retire, you should immediately take up gardening—as if spending decades working wasn’t enough back-breaking labor. They tell you it’s relaxing, rewarding, and a great way to stay active. What they don’t tell you is that gardening is basically an extreme sport for old people, complete with injury risks, unwanted critters, and territorial disputes with the guy next door who keeps “accidentally” picking your cucumbers.

And yet, despite its many perils, gardening does have some surprising benefits. So, before you throw in the trowel (ha!), let’s dig into why you might want to garden—and why you might just want to stay inside and watch Netflix instead.

The “Benefits” of Gardening (If You Survive It)

• Exercise Without the Gym Membership – Who needs a treadmill when you can squat over weeds for three hours and then spend the next week recovering and tucking the hemorrhoids back into place?
• Mental Health Boost – Something about cursing at plants that refuse to grow is weirdly therapeutic.
• Fresh Produce – Nothing tastes better than a homegrown tomato, mostly because you paid for it with blood, sweat, and tears (and possibly minor heatstroke).
• Sunlight and Vitamin D – Sure, you’ll get your daily dose of sunshine—along with a lovely farmer’s tan and a new respect for wide-brimmed hats.

But let’s be honest: while these benefits sound nice, gardening also comes with hazards that no one warns you about.

The Hazards of Gardening: What They Don’t Tell You

Bugs: The Tiny Demons of Your Garden

If you think gardening is just watering and pruning, you’re in for a rude, buzzing, and biting awakening.

• Mosquitoes will treat you like an all-you-can-eat buffet the second you step outside.
• Wasps do not care that you just wanted to plant some basil.
• Fire ants will ruin your entire week just for existing near their home.
• Slugs? Oh, you’ll meet slugs. They’ll eat your plants and laugh in your face while doing it.

Solution? Carry a flamethrower. Or, you know, bug spray. But the flamethrower is more fun.

Poisonous Plants and Other Botanical Betrayals

Not all plants are your friends. Some of them actively want to ruin your day.

• Poison Ivy – You don’t even have to touch it. Just look at it wrong, and suddenly you’re itching for a week.
• Thorny Bushes – Oh, you wanted a lovely rose garden? Enjoy bleeding for your hobby.
• Mushrooms – Some are delicious, some are deadly, and some just exist to mess with your head. (Do NOT test this theory.)
• Allergy Traps – You plant flowers for beauty, and in return, they fill your nose with pollen and your soul with regret.

Solution? Learn plant identification or just assume everything in your yard is trying to kill you.

Nosy Neighbors & The Great Cucumber Heist

If you manage to keep your plants alive, now you have to protect them from humans.

• There’s always that one hot but crazy neighbor with 7 cats, who swears she thought that giant zucchini “was just growing wild. And how it reminded her of her ex-boyfriend Paul, who was a Sagittarius and just a little to bitchy on game night, but hung like a well-developed, organic, ground-based vegetable.”
• The little old lady next door will “just take a couple of tomatoes,” but somehow that means your whole plant is suddenly empty.
• If your yard even hints at growing a fruit tree, congratulations—you’ve become the neighborhood grocery store Aldi.

Solution? Install motion-sensor sprinklers connected to canisters of pepper spray and deer urine, and watch the drama unfold.

Grandkids: The Ultimate Garden Wrecking Crew

So you spent months carefully tending your plants, only to have your grandkids turn your garden into a dirt track for their battery-powered vehicles.

• Your freshly planted marigolds? Now tire tracks.
• Your neat rows of lettuce? Flattened under tiny monster truck wheels.
• Your peaceful gardening session? Interrupted by screams of ‘WATCH ME GO FAST!’

And let’s not forget their contribution to wildlife preservation—by which I mean they will absolutely adopt a garden snake and release it inside your house.

Solution? Fence off your garden, gift the little air-thieving meat sacks with shock collars, and tell them to find the treasure eggs around the yard—tell them the tickle on the neck means that they are getting warmer!

If You Insist on Gardening, Here’s How to Do It Right

Now that you know the dangers, if you still want to garden, at least be strategic about it.

Best Times to Plant Stuff (So You Don’t Work in the Heat & Die)

• Spring: Perfect for flowers, veggies, and deciding that gardening was a mistake before summer arrives.
• Summer: Great for suffering. Also, plant heat-tolerant stuff like peppers, tomatoes, and regrets.
• Fall: The sweet spot. Good for pumpkins, leafy greens, and making your yard look Pinterest-worthy.
• Winter: Plant nothing. Sit inside and judge other people’s gardening failures.
• How Senior Citizens grow the absolute best medicinal marijuana (click here)

Protecting Your Plants from Thieves (Both Feathered & Human)

• Birds: They will eat every berry you grow unless you install netting. Or, release a squadron of angry motion-activated drones that make lion roaring sounds.
• Squirrels: These tiny psychopaths will take one bite out of every tomato just to spite you. Consider bribing them with a feeder and using a 12ga to provide them with an attitude adjustment—just use salt loads!
• Nosy Neighbors: Plant fake zucchini in obvious places while keeping the real stuff hidden. Confuse and frustrate them by placing multicolored dildos around the yard.
• Grandkids: Offer to pay them to help garden. Once they realize it’s actual work, they’ll never set foot in your yard again.

Final Thoughts: Netflix Might Be the Better Option

Look, gardening can be rewarding, but let’s be real: it’s exhausting, painful, and full of things that want to bite you. Is all that really worth a homegrown tomato?

Consider your alternatives:

• Netflix: No bugs. No heat. Just you, a blanket, and a remote control.
• Ordering Produce and Other Shit Online: Someone else suffers through gardening; you just pay for it and the Uber Eats driver that licked all your fruit.
• Artificial Plants: They look great, require no effort, and won’t attract squirrels (probably).

But hey, if you do decide to garden, at least you’ll have some great stories to tell while recovering from that heat rash and your latest back injury.

Happy digging!