before the fat lady sings

Pulling up plastic mulch: It's the equivalent of that most-awful clean-up job that, even though you know you shouldn't, you save for the very last minute before moving out of an apartment. After you clean out your fridge and decide whether to chuck the whole butter dish with butter still on it or actually go to the trouble of washing, drying, and putting away, which you really can't stand to do after days and hours of packing. After you take care of that mess behind the litterbox, or maybe the greasy dust bunnies that--who knew?--had been breeding and growing like gremlins in the darkness behind your garbage can. After all that, the only thing standing between you and getting-the-hell-out-of-Dodge, in this farm metaphor, at least, is the plastic mulch.

For those plants that prefer warmer climes than New England can provide (peppers, eggplant, melons, and okra, for example), we put down a layer of black plastic mulch. The edges are tucked under the soil, thanks to a really cool plastic-laying machine, and the plants grow through small holes in the plastic.

To get rid of it, we mow down what's left of the plants: The eggplants, shriveled and brown and crispy, look like the walking dead; the peppers look perfectly fine, still dangling shiny Thai hots, jalapenos, and assorted bells. Then two people, one on each edge, pull the plastic out from under the earth and weeds and plant nubs. It takes significant effort. Rotten peppers have been decomposing on the plastic for months, cooking in the heat and leaving behind just skins and stench. It gets on your hands, clings to your pants and boots, and the stank sticks to your upper lip like an unwelcomed guest who won't leave.

There is one redeeming aspect of pulling up plastic, though. After all the mowing and pulling and yanking and kicking, the ground is littered with thousands of peppers, some rotten, some grocery-store pristine. And as you make your way down the row, they pop underfoot. Like bubble wrap. Little crunchy pepper explosions.