Gardens Have No Mirrors

You might have seen her, the girl with the book and the silence.  The girl who didn't talk much except to sling a few zingers.  The girl who was pretty sure everyone had gotten an invitation and maybe she did too except now it was lost and she couldn't really be sure there was ever an invitation in the first place.  Ah, see how that happens?  At the beginning, the story is about you.  But now perspective has shifted and no one is sure who is remembering, who is dreaming.  A common theme in many lives--in many iterations of one life.

But I digress.

Here is what it takes to make something happen.  Find the three people inside you (or outside you, in which case you are looking for two)--the planner, the builder and the shlepper.  Add the right weather, a bottle of wine and a chicken.  If you've done it right and your team has not fallen into the trap of denial, defense and (unspoken) derision you will have created something.  In this case it was three box beds complete with compost (18 bags), peat moss (1 bag), herbs, tomatoes, jalopenos and a lot of marigolds.

I am particularly proud of this project because we did it ourselves--just the girls.  Carol came up with Elinor.  We went to Home Depot.  We got the wood, the brackets, the nails, the dirt and the plants.  Carol worked on her shawl and Sarah nailed.  Tess and Shania held the frames.  I lugged the compost and poured it in the frames over Elinor and Kaylah's feet.  Dancing in dirt makes every girl happy.  Everything we bought got planted.  And that is a wonderful feeling.

I am finding that much of gardening is solitary, silent but for bird song and distant traffic.  It is kneel and yank and scrape and dig.   Thinking is not required.  It is good work though.  It feels good to bury your hands in the cool dirt, to plant a seed, to give it a space to be whatever it can be with a little water, a little sun, a little luck.  (The luck is purely anthropomorphic.  I don't think the garden considers it.)

As a child I didn't garden much.  When I was in the 7th grade we planted zinnias but then we moved before they bloomed.  They are my favorite flowers and I have planted them every year for the past several summers.  I tried growing vegetables once or twice when the kids were small but after losing everything to the groundhogs more than once, I gave up.  My gardening devolved.  I might plant something if I got it as a gift or because someone was thinning something out and had extra.  But I live in a hazardous zone for plants.  Stewart would park on top of my beds or mow them over.  Or I would forget about it.  Or the clay soil would choke it.  I had a bed in the front yard that was all irises and yarrow and oregano and some bell flower plant that I really liked.  But neglect and sabotage killed almost everything.

I am smarter now.  I listen to Carol.  I border things with axle snapping rocks.  I use chicken wire.   If I am bored, I weed.  I move plants to better spaces if my first choice proves problematic.  With care plants survive.  Last year I canned tomatoes and peppers and beets all from my own garden.  I froze Swiss chard and kale and parsley and basil.  I have three large iris beds.  I even have some Siberian iris I got from Tiff.  It's blooming now.

This year I am hoping to do more.   I just need the beds.  I am working on it.  Gonna dig me up some dirt and plant something and watch it grow.  Along the way, I'll read a few books.  I think I'll lose the verbal darts though.  On reflection, they don't seem to belong in the garden.