Staff photo by Kevin Jacobus^^Mike Morin, 7/19/2005.

It’s a jungle out there. I should clarify. My back yard, which is mostly occupied by a pool and too many arborvitae shrubs, now has to share any remaining space with Lady Baba’s veggie garden this summer.

Since there is no room to turn the soil due to an overpopulated collection of blow-up pool floats (with cup holders, of course. Cue the eye roll), I was forced to create vegetable condos to raise some no-pesticide food.

Back in May, I put together some decent-sized planting beds made of fake wicker. Farming condos. Then, I was charged with filling them with endless bags of potting soil. Once the dirty work was done, Barbie planted a variety of bedding plants that we would presumably bear some good eats. But there were a few lessons to be learned.

Tip No. 1. Avoid purchasing pre-fertilized soil. Within a week, the cucumber bush struck an eerie resemblance to the Little Shop of Horrors plant. A few weeks after that, I had pickles coming out of my wazoo. There is no cure for this except to pay people to take your cuke babies off your hands.

Then the tomato plants began to bear fruit. Six weeks after the first green pearls appeared, I have yet to harvest a ripe tomato. It took installing a $30,000 surveillance system, to discover that chipmunks were harvesting the fruits and selling them at the Nashua Farmers Market. I had no idea that Chip and Dale had a craving for tomatoes and that they were little entrepreneurs as well.

Tip No. 2. Place the tomato plants on your pool floats. IN THE POOL. It’s kind like a farming moat to keep pests away. So far, so good. Chipmunks can’t swim. I rescued one out of the pool just in time last year. After warming himself while recovering on the warm bricks, he eventually scampered away and no doubt cursed me for repurposing the pool toys.

Tip No. 3. Do not place your crop condos near the patio bricks. The bricks absorb the sun’s rays, burn your bare feet and cause your well-watered plants to wilt, even on cool days. Vegetable plants don’t like condos any more than we do.

Tip No.4. Cut your losses. The cucumber plants peaked a month after they began producing spiky pickles that grew to become cucumbers. Then, after about a dozen nice specimens worthy of the Hopkinton State Fair 4-H hut, the last few cukes took on the shape of ghastly maracas. Even the waterlogged chipmunks weren’t interested.

Tip No. 5. Learn to love green beans. You will have them with every meal. Four bean plants were providers of, no joke, about a bushel of produce. Apparently our yard is the perfect storm for growing green beans. The chippies had no interest and the 150-degree hear from the bricks added heft to our crop.

Tip No. 6. To market farmers: Do not make fun of me. I’m looking to relocate a few dozen small rodents. And I will find your farm.

Contact Mike Morin at mike morinmedia@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @MikeMorinMedia. His column runs the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month.

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