0
0
I’m not opposed to the occasional cliché. They exist for a reason. Much like uncomfortable stereotypes, clichés apply in situations I wish they did not. And while clichés tend to amputate critical thinking, sometimes they simply cannot be avoided.
Such is the case with my garden.
I tell myself that I love my garden because it keeps me real, connects me with the earth, makes me appreciate the vegetables I eat, and hooks me into the Circle of Life.
(Insert Elton John’s song here….)
The reality is – what I love about my garden is its practicality. I want food available in my back yard that continues to produce so I won’t have to pay for it at the store. I simply want good food, cheap. How hard can it be? I plant the seed. It sprouts. It blooms. Pollination magically happens. And voila! I have green beans.
Fresh green beans are a religion unto themselves.
What I don’t love about my garden is – gardening. I hate weeding. I hate mosquitoes. I hate spiders. And sadly, I now hate squirrels.
I use to love squirrels – they were my furry friends romping hither and thither across my back yard. I gave them peanut butter and corn in the winter. I shooed my dog, Marley, away from them in the spring. I’ve even rescued one that fell from its nest – found him a home in a squirrel rescue house in the country. I have a tender heart – really.
However, now that I have a garden… Squirrels are thieving, conniving, ungrateful, menaces that snatch my green tomatoes before I can respectably harvest them. Heirloom tomatoes, mind you. Heirloom tomatoes that I grow from seed!
In fact, nearly all of my plants are of the heirloom variety, sown by hand in January in my kitchen, under a new moon. I lovingly plant them in a vitamin-rich soil medium, nestle each peat-moss planter in a large plastic storage bin that I turn into a temporary terrarium, place heating-pads beneath each one, and keep them warm and moist until each seed has sprouted.
These bins full of dirt, water, and seeds take over half of my son’s play room for two months, because it is the sunniest spot in my house. He doesn’t complain anymore, because he believes his mommy loves to garden. This is a lie that, as a mother, I will perpetuate for his own edification.
Once my plants are the appropriate height and have enough leaves on them, I harden them off outside on good-weather days. I begin with one hour each day, and incrementally increase it over the next week or three until they can manage being outside all day and night. This takes a while, for March doesn’t have a lot of good-weather days.
I should get a medal for the way I mother these plants. I should be applauded. I should at least get some food out of it.
Instead, I get mosquito bites, broken nails, bad knees, an aching back, and enough Xanax to take away the pain after the squirrels completely strip my Brandywines & Purple Cherokees, and break all the branches while doing it.
I do not feel connected to the earth. I do not feel grateful. I do not feel like singing “The Circle of Life.” I feel dirty, itchy, and angry.
Yet each year, I persist at this insanity. Each year, I plant the seed, it sprouts, it blooms, pollination magically happens, and I have no eggplants, no cucumbers, no squash, no green peppers, no melons, and NO TOMATOES!
Until this year.
This year I’ve got cherry tomatoes all over my garden. Two squash plants are thriving against any prospect of being alive. Okra is bursting out all over. And green beans….I have green beans by the bag full.
What was the stroke of brilliance?
As it turns out, I didn’t plant cherry tomatoes this year. These are volunteers that reseeded from the ones I planted last year. I had 25 volunteers, and I narrowed them down to 10. I’ve got a bumper crop.
I didn’t plant the squash either. A friend gave us some very large squash that I used for fall decoration. When the Christmas decorations came out, I threw the enormous squash and some baby pumpkins into my garden for the squirrels to eat. They ate them all right – the little ingrates – and left the seeds, which planted themselves. You should see the vines. They are beautiful! Squash and pumpkins wind past the chipmunk-ravaged blueberry bush and the bird-gobbled carrots & parsnips.
The green beans and okra seeds were thrown in the ground at the last minute, in hopes that they would sprout. No playroom. No heating-pad. No fussing and watching for mold. No weaning them off of the warmth of my house. The okra and beans are everywhere and covered in blooms, bees, and veggies.
I should feel useless. I should feel angry. I should be cursing the tomatoes and green peppers for not keeping up with their vegetable teammates. But all I am is…. happy. I’ve got food in my back yard that continues to produce so I don’t have to pay for it at the store. That’s all I ever wanted. And I’m proud to say it’s mine – even if I didn’t do it.
So, we were talking clichés….. Yes. Well.
I’d elaborate more, but I’ve got some okra to fry.
Hmmmm perhaps the message is Don’t work so hard, throw your seeds to the soil and let them grow
My mom used to send her boss out to get tomato plants each spring, then she would “steal” two plants from the boss’s haul. Why? My mom firmly believed that stolen plants produced better. Her boss would take home two dozen plants and care for them, only to have them die. Mom would place her two plants in the container on the patio she used for cigarette butts (those were the days) and keep her family and the boss’s family in tomatoes all summer.