How does my garden grow?

When my parents built a new home in the post-WWII housing heyday, they planted two apple trees and tilled a garden in the backyard. They dug an additional plot at the back of a second adjoining lot.

One garden was given over to potatoes and some rows of sweet corn. In the other: peas, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, and squash—both summer and winter varieties.

These were not hobby gardens. These were not I-just-like-to-have-some-fresh-peas-in-the-spring gardens. These were work-ethic plots, meant to help the family avoid purchasing veg through the winter. After toiling in the family hardware store from eight to six, my parents walked directly from the pickup to weeding and watering and checking the produce.

The only thing I liked about gardening was planting potatoes. Dad had a potato planter with a wire chute and a foot pedal. He shoved the wedge at the planter’s base into the ground, creating a hole. I dropped the eye of potato into the chute.

When he stepped on the pedal to open the chute, he released the eye into the hole in the ground and freed the planter. It made a satisfying KA-THWACK as the jaws closed. We’d move down row after row after row, KA-THWACK, KA-THWACK, KA-THWACK. Time alone with Dad was rare, so I would stay and finish the job. It didn’t matter if we planted well after dark.

That’s where my horticultural interests thudded to a hard stop. Once the potatoes were planted, I stayed in the house doing homework, practicing piano, or sneaking potato chips to stave off hunger while my parents pruned and picked.

SIDE NOTE: Notice that if I were planting potatoes, I didn’t think about food, but when I wasn’t planting potatoes, I was thinking about them and eating them in their most unhealthy form.

Sure, I loved fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob, but I hated weeding, and I hated canning and freezing our gardens’ bounty. Summer evenings weren’t for lounging, they were for “putting up” food for winter.

I was drafted into service, and even though I am an inward contrarian, I outwardly complied. I helped under silent duress.

SECOND SIDE NOTE: I used to believe that this “Sure, I’ll help” (but I REALLY don’t want to) was unique to Calvinism. Now I realize most of us feel this way at least five times a day, so my apologies to Calvin.

The worst task was freezing corn. Slicing stacked kernels off the cob is momentarily satisfying. It’s like watching the side of a building fall, but it quickly turns messy. The niblets spurt corn juice on the knife, the table, your hands, and then everyone else’s hands. Soon everything ends up sticky, sticky, sticky.

Given this history, it still baffles me that when I first became a homeowner, I decided to plant a garden. The previous owners had worked a large plot, and it seemed like too much effort to plant grass.

I had watched “Square Foot Gardening” on PBS and liked the idea of sectioning a swath of ground into mini plots. I scavenged old boards and marked off the four-foot sections. I planted lettuce, spinach, carrots, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and corn. I laid down newspaper mulch to curtail the weeds.

Stuff actually sprang up, but just as quickly rabbits started mowing the lettuce and spinach. Why didn’t I put up a fence, you ask. I ask myself that, too, now. I did harvest some produce that year, enough to spur me to try again the following year.

Year Two. I’ve never owned a gun, but I had mighty murderous thoughts and a fair measure of regret. The damn rabbits took up residence in the yard. They were unconcerned when I rushed out of the house waving my arms. I was fairly certain they were raising a family next to the leaf lettuce.

Uncle.

By Year Three, I seeded the expanse in grass and forswore gardening. Watering turf suddenly seemed infinitely easier than battling Peter and Petra Cottontail and their brood, Paul, Penelope, Prunella, Per, Poppy, Paige, Patrick, Polly, Peyton, Piper, Paisley, Palmer, and Parker.

Through the years I tried raising cherry tomatoes in containers. Instead of Sun Golds, I got Spindly Disasters. I barely had time to get to know my cilantro plants before they bolted. Farewell to thee, cilantro!

The only crops I had success with were mint and raspberries. I did not know that mint thrives on neglect. It should really be called a weed given the way it spreads. It’s the perfect plant for me.

And the raspberries! They, too, spread like weeds, but they made for glorious eating, and they attracted bees and hornets and wasps, so I felt super virtuous doing my bit for the pollinator class.

Now I live in an apartment, and one year, I wanted to grow a few things. I tried basil in a west window, but it died of thirst while I was gone for a long weekend.

A neighbor has two stationary planters in front of her home. This year, she offered one if I wanted to sow some seed. Seed, no, starters, yes. I stuck in two cherry tomato plants, a basil plant, a bell pepper plant, and one crookneck squash. Notice, though, no potatoes.

I didn’t prepare the soil. I didn’t ask her to pray over the five plants (she’s a minister), I just dug holes, plugged in the starters, packed the soil, sprinkled some water (its own sort of prayer) and hoped for the best. I fully expected signs of rabbit nibbling or squirrel digging, but I come by every day to water them, and, so far, remain untouched.

Over one hot weekend, they went from spindly waifs in search of shelter to Marvel superheroes. It’s none of my doing, that’s for sure. All I can say is that there must be hallowed ground in that planter or else my friend really has been praying over them.

So far, so good. Stay tuned.