I've been waiting since January to write about gardening. I like to keep things topical and in sync with the wheel of the year, so I've patiently held off. Now that it is late spring, gardening is an appropriate subject but I find myself hesitating. While I clearly have an affection for metaphor, gardening metaphors are a bit tired and cliche. For that matter, complaining about things being cliche is cliche as well but so be it. I'm tired, it's true. But I prefer to avoid being predictable and unoriginal. The fertile soil of ideas once abundant in garden metaphors depleted of its nutrients by years of harvesting the same crop without rotating locations. Sorry--couldn't help myself. From this point on I'll write about my weekend digging in the dirt without drawing parallels to life. Probably wouldn't need to anyway.
There are two straightish rows, perhaps 20 feet long by 1 foot wide each cut out of the lawn in the back yard. These were left by the previous owner, a retired woman who by the state of the landscaping clearly had a lot of time on her hands. With work, kids, and the host of other commitments I have I couldn't dream of keeping all of the land and gardens up to her standards but the vegetable garden calls to me, so for that one I make more of an effort. It is impossible to know exactly what was there before save for a few plastic markers found buried in the dirt. This makes things a little tricky since some plants don't like to set up shop when certain other vegetables have been. Being close to the water the soil has it's problems to begin with. Dry and sandy in some areas, sticky and clay-filled in others. I did okay getting a few things to grow in my first attempt last year, and I want to build on it and improve.
The first order of business was to create a border around the plots and fill it with pine bark mulch to keep the weeds and grass at bay. With a first spritz of insect repellant for the season, I dug right in. I needed to pounce on the shovel like a pogo stick with all of my weight for leverage to cut through the tough layer of grass roots. A shovel of course does not act like a pogo stick--it goes down but not back up again. I had the hang of it but then got distracted by the call of "Nice butt!" from the distance and my feel got tangled up and I fell back. Right onto the apparently nice butt. Now a bit sore. I was carefull to go through all of the sod I dug up to return the loose dirt and worms to the ground. I even uncovered a few toads which left me wondering what kind of omen a toad portends--particularly one with only half of a face.
I began to feel thirsty and a little hungry and started thinking about lunch. It turns out that we had worked well past lunch into the afternoon. I had been digging in the dirt for 4 hours with rarely a word spoken. I tried to think about how I had managed to pass the time since it wasn't the most exciting work, and relized I couldn't think of any thoughts that had passed through my mind with the exception of the worms. My mind never shuts off, so while I was physically exhausted it was definitely the mental break I needed. If we don't take care of ourselves who will? So to end with a cliched quote from Voltaire's Candide, (but it's written in French which makes it cooler) "Il faut Cultiver Notre Jardin."
(Translation: You must tend to your own garden.)
Love the pogo stick imagery!
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