Part 1: A Digression
A digression before we even start! It must be Tuesday!
Every weekday morning, I wake up to NPR. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, filling my head, right off the bat, with images of fluish swine and economic boogie men, but today, Obama was introducing his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. If you missed it, here’s the video and here’s the transcript. I don’t know if she’ll make it through the confirmation process (though the analysts are saying it looks good, so I’m hopeful), but I do know that hearing Sonia Sotomayor’s story first thing this morning inspired me, made me want to get up, start my day, grab hold of my life and my laptop and write something daring, something maybe just beyond my reach. How can that not be the best possible start for my day?
Part 2: The real reason we’re here… yard work!
Okay, so this weekend I was out in the yard, playing in the dirt. I never thought I’d be a gardener, and I guess it’s a stretch to call me a gardener now. I can’t name most of what I’ve planted, and let’s be honest. Most of what’s growing in my backyard, I didn’t put there. My backyard is a brilliant example of “life finds a way,” stuff popping up everywhere, unnamed and fierce. I let most of it stay. It’s survival of the fittest out there, the ivy (which I didn’t plant) battling it out with the jasmine (which I did), no holds barred.
I like that – the unexpected taking root. And there’s something else. I’ve discovered that when I’m out in the yard, pulling weeds or planting things, I’m as close to Zen as I can be. My mind empties; it’s just me and my movements and nothing else. I don’t write stories or contemplate characters. I don’t worry about the finances or whether my boys will think kindly of me when they look back on their childhoods. My mind doesn’t skip from one thing to the next in its usual frenetic way, it just gets quiet. Smooth. I watch my hands in the dirt and I think about nothing. It’s a tiny miracle in j-land.
And so, I’m planting a vegetable garden, something I never thought I’d do because gardening is boring and sedentary and something that old people do when they can no longer leap tall buildings in a single bound. I said to Chad recently, “I may have to admit that I like gardening.”
He said, “Why is that a hard thing to admit?”
I said, “I don’t know. It’s like admitting I like knitting or something.”
“You’re a funny girl,” he said.
So, now that I’m outed, the work has begun. Our garden has to be fenced off because Lexi is big and curious and clumsy. And she digs. Chad asked me what kind of fence I wanted and I rambled. “You know something cool. Not too cute. Not a picket fence. Something rustic. Not too country. Strong but not too imposing…” I guess my instructions were perfect because Chad built this.
Now, according to my research, ALL we have to do is pull everything that’s in there out (except for the tree and any of the plants that insist upon staying), break out the rototiller, put a bunch of organic supplements in our clay soil, sketch the area with dimensions and shade-to-sun ratio calculations, set up a calendar of planting and harvest dates, read entire books on our climate zone, note our ambient temperatures, wind patterns and the rate of arctic meltage, and conduct experiments (j-science!) in organic pest control. (Note: Did you know that decollate snails don’t eat your plants but do eat plant-eating snails? Cool right? Just like the ivy and the jasmine, the vegetable garden will be a battlefield, a dog-eat-dog, or snail-eat-snail, slow-motion eco-war waged while I sleep.)
Oh, yeah. And we’ll plant some stuff too. (Gardening thoughts, advice, condolences welcome!)
That picture of you and Lexi is so perfect! Once again, however, it makes me miss being able to see you and talk to you in person. Well, at least I’m fortunate enough to have had some time with you in ‘real life’ . . . I know that some folks that read your blogs have never had the pleasure, so I’m fortunate in that respect. Your post reminds me of a book I’m attempting to read (I’m easily distracted) it’s called Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi . . . you should look it up someday. It’s about achieving that zone you talked about when you are gardening. There are a lot of other fascinating thoughts in the book too.
Just after you finish tilling, and just before you plant, get in there with some old trucks, and cars; smooth and shape the dirt, set up a little town with roads and cardboard box houses and such. I always loved doing that in my back yard when I was young. Have a little fun for me!
kid
i also recently and reluctantly admitted that i like gardening, for the same reason as you. i thought i was saving it for when i was old, like the rest of my family. but i didn’t (just to be clear :-D). admittedly, i’m also the world’s laziest and laid back gardener. here’s my patented method in 5 easy steps: 1) plant stuff 2) let the sprinkler’s water it 3) see what happens 4) eat whatever’s edible 5) most important, enjoy!
carey: enjoy “flow”. i read it years ago and it was eye-opening. not an easy read (which is odd, considering the topic) but worth it.
kid: you’re absolutely right! i recently switched my son’s sand box to a dirt box, because he’d rather play in dirt than sand. (he’s right – it is more fun!) now he calls it his dirt garden. :-D
Carey, I definitely need to read the flow book. This is about the zillionth time I’ve heard about it. The universe is screaming at me, wondering why I’m so dense. =)
Kid, You make me smile.
JB, well, that certainly is a faster way to garden Nirvana. I’m sold! (Though you know I hate to pass up a chance to do J-science… so the decollate snail is still a distinct possibility.)
Judy, you’re on a very nice path and the garden looks very nice even without the vegetables, but I’m confident you’ll get there too.
The photo of you and Lexi is adorable, she really is big and I can understand how much damage she could do, since my cats are pretty good at playing with and breaking my flowers, digging, etc. and they’re small compared to Lexi :P
Anyway, hope you’ll post and add photos when the vegetable garden is done and thing start growing, ripening.
As an advice I can say that you should water them only early in the morning or late at night after the sun has set so you don’t end up burning them. And there are loads of good tricks you can find on the net, so it’s really about what you decide to grow and take it from there.
Hope it works all out!
Carey, I love that you’re trying to read a book by a Hungarian author (even if he is living in the US). Makes me proud of being one (not the author part, the Hungarian part) :P
And the book really is great! :)
Cool blog-I like your writing style. In the middle east they say that gardeners get an automatic “in”ticket to paradise…perhaps that will help alleviate your concerns about enjoying gardening too much.
GartenGrl at Planning Plants to Plant
Estrella, are you actually in Hungary? I thought you were here in the states for some reason. (Maybe because our problems and joys are similar regardless of geographic location. I like the thought of that.) Hugs!
GartenGrl, I like that, a ticket to paradise. I’d settle for a ticket to purgatory, but I think the Catholics did away with that. *sigh* I’ll be checking out your site. Thank you for stopping by!
:) well I’m actually Hungarian, but live in Romania (but you were close, cause it’s right next to Hungary), in a city called Kolozsvar. You can take a look at some photos here http://estrella05azul.wordpress.com/kolozsvar/
And I like that thought too, regardless of geographic location, people. problems, etc. really are mostly the same :) Hugs!
I SO get you about that Zen feeling with gardening–it is about the only thing I can say that does it for me, too(I think you are even more ADD than me!)–sometimes I just like looking at and thinking about my garden, and the weeding I even like! I get into this Zen-like weeding zone.
I started gardening when my daughter was three, and every year I have learned a little more but I am far from a great gardener.
I have to admit that maintaining a vegetable garden has never been my strong suit(so I only grow small batches of things like lettuce and carrots and herbs in big pots) and I guess I just don’t have the stamina for the heartbreak of losing what you have nurtured to creepy beetle and caterpillar invasions.
So, I stick with flower gardening, where I can slowly create and sculpt(and change things around) beauty in my surroundings and make sure my fingernails have dirt under them at the end of the day(I rarely wear gloves).
I wonder what you’ll be planting within those custom built fence walls!? Will you grow some little baby carrots for Lexi?
BTW, I make my morning coffee right after I have switched on NPR news in the kitchen every single day, and I agree–the Sotomayor background story is uplifting.
Oh wow…the coment by kidatheart, above, just made me smile and made me remember doing that, too.
Tina, Yeah, the pests thing has me a bit concerned. When I was looking up gardens on google, there was a lot of pest information. I might wind up growing flowers in my garden after all. =)
I like your “all I still have to do” list. Grow our own food — so simple! :-) One option is to mix all the seeds together and, with your back to the fence and Lexi at your side, throw the seeds over your shoulder and let them fall where they may… that’s probably not the recommended farming method though.
My starter garden is 1/10 the size of yours, and I have serious fence envy. I have very low expectations this year, for the first try.
Jane, I’m liking that method of planting. Sounds like j-science! A friend, looking at my awesome fence said, “So you’re good until Lexi, chasing a critter, jumps the fence.” Hmmm… Guess that rules out the hedgehog idea.
jane – i love your seed throwing idea! i’ve always wanted to try that with flower seeds and see what i get. :-)
wow – looks like there are a lot of gardeners on this site! fyi… i found the book “Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work” to be really helpful – especially for small spaces. that’s the book that got me started. and their recipe for organic soil really works. i think i could grow plastic plants in that stuff. :-)
jb, Square foot gardening sounds way less complicated than my plan. (Little more complicated than Jane’s.) I got a recipe for organic soil from our local nursery’s website. Hopefully it will work as well. I may resort to growing plastic as I think that maybe the best way to ward off pests!
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