As he drove off to his regular Sunday golf game, my husband said, "Hey, while I'm thinking about it, don't forget to check the beans. I think there's more out there. Oh, and don't forget to get those tomatoes in, too."

I was sorta thinking about doing something today that didn't require me to go outside in the hot sun and pluck vegetables.

Maybe lolling about on the couch watching HGTV and eating bonbons. Or sleeping ... a long nap would be nice.

But a vegetable garden waits for no man and no woman. Of course, I have only myself to blame. It was my idea, after all.

This is my third year as a farmer.

Well, okay, maybe not quite a farmer in the truest sense of the word. All of my gardening experience has been in the area of fussing over flowering plants and other frippery, but for the last three years I've dipped a toe into the big-shouldered world of food production.

In my rookie year, I babied just two tomato plants. I put them in pots on the patio and patiently waited for something to happen.

It took much longer, in my humble opinion, than I thought it should, but eventually the plants produced some very tasty tomatoes. I was thrilled that I'd managed to actually grow these little delights all by myself and looked forward to a summer of plucking tomatoes right out of the garden for a dinner salad.

A few evenings later, we were sitting on the patio, enjoying the cooler evening air but slapping at the multitudes of winged, biting insects that inevitably gathered. Unwilling to give up the pleasure of relaxing outside, the next day I purchased an insect repellent that promised to zap every bug in the neighborhood for "up to four months."

I studied the label intently before spraying the entire patio with it, being careful, as the label noted, to avoid spraying bees. That solved the bug problem.

When my husband arrived home later in the day, I told him what I'd done. He, uh, suggested I call the company that manufactured the product and discuss the possibility the tomatoes had now been rendered inedible.

And so, the following day I had a conversation with a company representative.

"The label doesn't say anything about your product being dangerous to people," I said. "Only to bees. And after all, these tomatoes are called 'patio' tomatoes. Surely you considered that when you wrote the instructions on the label, didn't you?"

Silence on the other end of the line.

Then, "Let me just check on that for you."

And then, "Uh, m'am, uh, you should not eat any of the tomatoes on your plants. And, uh, in fact, you shouldn't eat any of the tomatoes the plant produces later on."

"You mean ...?" I said.

"Well, uh, yes, m'am, uh, you should just, uh, you know, uh, cut the plants down and get rid of them."

I dismembered the plants and tossed them in the trash, being careful, as advised by the repellent manufacturer, to wash my hands thoroughly after doing so. That was the unhappy end of season one.

On the bright side, I notice the newer containers of this product do now contain a warning about spraying any of it on bees AND vegetables.

In my second year, we again put in just two tomato plants, but this time we put them at the side of our shed, away from the patio, and although damaged heavily by a late summer storm, they still produced well. Importantly, they lived through the entire season.

Which only emboldened me to reach for greater success in my third season as a farmer. If I could grow tomatoes successfully, why not try green beans, my favorite vegetable?

I was inspired by my daughter, who has managed to kill every flower she's ever planted, but who has been very successful growing green beans. Not to be outdone, I asked my husband to clear an inconspicuous area in the backyard for my latest experiment in agricultural production. He even planted the beans for me --six neat rows, each about three feet long.

Again, it took much longer than my impatient nature expected -- who knew we would experience a do-over of Noah's flood this year -- but eventually I was rewarded with about two pounds of green beauties.

I was about to pull up the plants after I'd picked all the beans when my husband informed me that they would produce more beans if left to themselves. As a rookie farmer, I obviously had a great deal to learn.

So I left the beans alone and in due time, there were more beans. And then there were more ... and more ... and still more beans.

Like a Hollywood "starlet" who clings to her youthful image long past any reasonable doubt that she's well into her 40s, these beans just keep coming back. Green beans used to be my favorite vegetable, but the bloom is considerably off the rose now.

Now I find myself praying for the first frost, which will (I hope) kill the little green devils and take the tomatoes, too, because tomato production outstripped our ability to keep up quite some time ago.

Getting rid of excess production can be tricky. Everyone likes fresh produce, but even close friends and relatives will start avoiding you if they're overwhelmed by your "gifts." You can try putting the veggies in brown paper bags instead of plastic, but they'll catch on to that subterfuge pretty quickly. When they stop answering the door and you can see them hiding behind the curtains, you know the jig is up.

Next year, I'm changing my strategy. I'm going to go back to my flowers and plants and let someone else do the vegetables. Now that we have a viable farmers market on the downtown courthouse square, that should be easy.

What? Oh, you didn't know about the Marshall Market on the Square?

Well, now you do -- Saturday, Sept. 6, and Saturday, Oct. 4, from 7 to 11 a.m. on the east side of the square. And next year, we hope to make it a weekly event. C'mon down and join us for tasty vegetables and fruits and other edibles, with a little music on the side. The more the merrier!