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The Garden is the seventeenth episode of the series George and Martha that aired on May 23, 1999. It's sister episode is Split Pea Soup.

Summary[]

Martha pulls the weeds out of her garden, while George has a seat in her hammock with a box of straws. He combines the straws together to make a bigger straw to drink the tea out of, until Martha questions him, asking to help her garden. George wanted to relax, but Martha states that gardening is relaxing. She shows him how to garden, and gives him a shovel. George surprisingly, finds it fun after all.

Meanwhile, Penny finds a caterpillar munching on one of her flowers in her garden. She dresses up in a hazmat suit and plucks the caterpillar, then walks over to George and Martha's garden. She congratulates Martha for joining the "gardening society", confusing her, although tells her that she won't win first place in the garden contest, as Penny won every year before it started. Martha says that she just gardens for fun, not for a contest. Penny shows George the caterpillar that she blames came from their garden, which he takes. Martha gets rough and tells George they have work to do.

First, she asks George to pull out the weeds in the garden before they can plant. He does pull one out, but one lands on Martha. Next he says that they have to soften the soil by wetting it with water. George however, gets tied up in the hose. They finish planting some flowers, and Martha is tired, so they decide to continue tomorrow. The next day, George thinks that the garden doesn't look as much different as it did the past day. Penny suggests that he get fertilizer to speed things up. George thanks her, and asks to take care of the caterpillar which freaks her out. George comes back to the garden with a wheelbarrow full of fertilizer. Martha wakes up, smelling the awful smell of manure. George thought that getting a lot of fertilizer makes things speed up even more than a little fertilizer. George removes the manure, and the garden seems ruined, with Penny laughing about it.

George still won't give up for Martha, so he goes to the nursery and buys a whole bundle of plants. Later that night, he digs them. The next day, some judges welcome the Annual Garden Society Contest, claiming that no matter who gets the ribbon, everyone's a winner. First they go to Oscar and Wilde's garden, and Penny's garden. Just as they put out the first place ribbon, George shows them over to Martha's garden. For the first time, they declare that someone other than Penny won, but that is automatically discarded when it is discovered that the plants are store bought, not grown. Martha says that she would rather have a friend like George than have all the gardens in the world. George sees that the tulip he has planted is starting to grow.

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