In the northern hemisphere, spring has arrived, at least in theory. Here in Maine, we're expecting snow tomorrow. I've never lived quite so far north, and I'm struggling to be patient with the cold and the late start to the season. Most years I'd have germinating plants emerging, just a few weeks away from their outdoor debut. This year, I'm trying to remember that I can't rush nature.
I wouldn't really call myself a gardener. I marvel at the homesteading gurus with their greenhouses and all the right tools for growing, canning, and storing bushels of produce. Sure, I watch TV shows about gardening, permaculture, and farming. I get a jolt of excitement when the seed catalogs arrive. I absolutely spend hours daydreaming about new and innovative ways to turn our yard into a pollination destination. But I'm not a gardener.
I've known truly great gardeners, people who closely monitor their soil pH, take pride in their weedless patches, can spot a brassica from a hundred paces, and always have the right irrigation solutions. I'm something else entirely, a seed dreamer? A plant dula? I love imagining what the garden could be, planning it to the best of my ability, and then lazily throwing it in the ground and hoping for the best.
For me, the joy is in the planning, the hoping the wishing. The sustained months of work, the weeding and watering, these interest me far less. Yet each year, in springtime, I hatch plans to create a garden that sustains my interest.
I've found that one of the best ways to ensure my own follow through is to frontload the work through a series of unnecessary, yet artful, projects. I'm a nascent potter, and since January I've exclusively thrown ceramic flowerpots and vases. Having pretty pots to grow things in will help ensure that I fill them with something.
Last week I spent an entire afternoon cutting paper grocery bags into straps, soaking them in water, and wrapping them around soda cans to create seed starting containers. Could I have bought them? Sure, Would I get the smug satisfaction of doing it myself? Absolutely not. In some backwards way, this will help the garden grow.
Pouring effort into springtime creative projects will, I hope, give me motivation in July when the sweat carries dirt into my eyes as the mosquitoes bite in awkward places where even the sunburn fears to tread.
Am I attempting to game my future self? Perhaps, but I know myself well enough to know that future me will feel guilty for letting me down. Though I'm sure she will have obstacles I cannot foresee. She will experience aphids and aches and pains, our neighbors' chickens will surely do some damage, the weather will do strange things. My goal now is to cultivate a garden worth fighting for.
What makes a garden, or any project, worth the effort? In modern times, it's easy to devalue a garden. Plants are a commodity, we know the relative value of a plant. Wouldn't it be easier to just go to the store? Is a garden just a collection of plants? The grocery store has veggies, just buy them. Of course, buying is always an option. I'm an American, consumption is our true religion.
But I'm losing faith. Corporate profits are at an all time high and yet we are sick, physically and mentally. Our fertile lands have been depleted by mono crops. Our rivers carry petrochemical fertilizers downstream. Most seed sold in the US is grown by companies owned by the pharmaceutical industry. Food quality decreases and our health follows suit. A garden is an act of resistance.
A garden grows more than food though. Last weekend we met with our neighbors to coordinate buying lumber to build raised beds, sharing the load in more ways than one. I will give seedlings to the beekeeping couple and the chicken farming family. Our seeds will grow eggs and honey. Our gardens strengthen the bonds of community.
We grow stories in our gardens as well. A few years back we were living in Queens, NY. Our landlord gave us permission to turn a small patch of the back yard into a garden. We made memories, driving around searching for compost, arguing over the best way to secure tomatoes and the most effective companion plants, watching eggplants turn from white to deep purple. A garden helps us slow down and notice the passage of time-- it helps us remember.
That little garden caused quite a stir; neighbors would peer over the fence, ask us what we were doing, and later they came by to invite us to tour their own little gardens which ours had inspired. Once upon a time, all our backyards had been farmland, but we helped the people and the land remember.
Gardens help us remember. Whenever I put seeds in the ground, I think of my mother and grandmother. My grandmother never grew vegetables in her garden, but she loved flowers and herbs. Well into her 90's she would take delight in deadheading peonies, tossing them into the wind. My mother has a garden surrounding her pool. Sometimes she'll water the plants while lounging in the pool, just shooting the hose water with reckless abandon. Her basil always goes to seed without my intervention but she still manages to make delicious pesto. In my memories, the women in my family always have a little dirt under their nails. (My grandmother would object to this, as she took very good care to keep a manicure set nearby, but my memories are mine to edit.)
In the next few days, I will fill the paper bag containers with soil and seeds and begin the process of germination. I will ensure they have adequate sun and water, and when the time comes and the fear of frost has passed, I will plant them in the garden beds built with help from the neighbors. I will argue with my husband about the right way to do things, he will call me a "funny person." We will eat salads and bake zucchini bread. Maybe this year I'll finally conquer canning (but probably not).
Ultimately, i hope future me doesnt measure the success of the garden by it's yield or its beauty, but by the value it brings in creativity, joy, stories, connections and memories. That's what I want to grow.
(Image description: three cardboard boxes filled with cylinders made from strips of paper grocery bags)
