My First Garden
An
insect buzzed passed my ear. I froze, as I’d been trained to do, so as not to
startle the little winged creature. I looked around as best I could without actually
moving my head and saw a streak of black. I sighed and then continued digging.
This fear of wasps has been with me for as long as I can remember. I suppose I
should have been proud of myself that I didn’t jump up and run around
screaming, but it was hard not be annoyed with myself and my fear of something
that could (and would, I was sure of it) create a little bit of pain. I’ve been
stung all of twice in my life and while the sting in no way compares to many
things I’ve been through, like breaking my foot or having my children, I did
not relish going through it again. I am a city girl. It pains me to say this
because I come from good, Saskatchewan farming stock, but I grew up in the city
and I suspect that is where I’ll always be.
After 12 years
of living in townhouses with no real yard, my husband and I finally managed to
move our three children into a house with four outside walls all our own. With
this house, that is not connected in any way to our neighbours, came a yard
with a garden plot in it that measures 420 square feet, a mere 80 square feet
smaller than our first apartment. This is a large garden by city standards,
though admittedly much smaller than the garden my grandma tended when I was a
child. I was excited to start gardening since this was the first home I’d lived
in that I could, but one often wants what they can’t have and then as soon as
they have it, stop wanting it. Being no exception to this rule, I contemplated
simply planting grass seed as I began to dig up the overgrown garden plot that
was now my own.
I had modest
plans for my garden. A few beans, a couple pumpkins and some potatoes, but even
with the limited planting I planned to do, the whole garden still needed to be
dug up. Weeds needed picking and the dirt needed turning. For all the things I
didn’t know, I did know this. My experience in gardening was limited to my half
hearted chores as a teenager where my biggest lesson was that gardening was
boring. My second lesson was something about getting the whole root of the dandelion
out or it would grow again, stronger. Or something like that, anyways. So when
I dug up my first dandelion and heard a snap, I silently cursed, realizing I’d
be doing this same thing in this same spot in a couple of weeks. I suspected
that my efforts were simply an exercise in futility and was feeling confident
that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I hoped that I was doing enough
damage to the weeds I was pulling that they would not be able to grow back. I
realized the irony that resilient weeds would grow back if the root was left,
but the desirable plants would die if the conditions were not perfect, if they
would sprout at all. Oh, the toil of humanity.
I was prepared
for worms; worms aren’t so bad even if they are slimy, squirmy and squishy.
They help our soil, right? But then I found myself apologizing to my worm
friends as my cultivator cut them in half. I was pretty sure worms could
survive such a wound, or at least that’s what I thought I remembered from high
school science class. I hated causing such damage to the poor little soil
helpers because surely being chopped in half was worse that being stung by a
wasp. Then I dug up something that resembled an earwig and shuddered,
remembering why earwigs have their name. I was grateful for the gloves I was
wearing, a small barrier between the underworld and my skin.
A song bird was
singing in the yard next door, the sun was shining gently down on me and the
wind created a pleasant breeze. These were conditions that normally make me
relax, feeling as though I am at one with nature. Instead, I found myself
tensing with each turn of the soil, scared of what I would see next, willing
myself not to scream like the city girl that I am. Hoping that each root I
pulled was not a worm, I tried reminding myself that this is what I’d wanted
since we’d owned our first home. I wanted to work with the earth to feel that
connection my extended family has. I wanted to grow food because I remember
picking food fresh from my grandma’s garden as a child. I wanted to garden
because I think it’s important to understand the growing process.
I could go for
weeks without handling food in its natural state. Frozen, canned and processed
food easily replaces fresh produce and meat. In my more anxious times, I
imagine how horrible life would become if we lost our food chain, or as I know
it, grocery stores. If our oil supply was interrupted and we could no longer
truck all that lovely food that is delivered to our grocery stores each week, I
would become very hungry, very quickly. And then I think about my children and
how they have such a limited understanding of how our food comes to our table,
leaving mounds of uneaten food on their plates after most meals. These children
with two city parents know very little about the cycle of life, even if their
mom did get to spend her summers on a farm.
I remember
clearly the summers I spent as a young child at my aunt and uncle’s cattle and
wheat farm. My sister and I would wake up with our rough and tumble brothers
and cousins and make our way down to the barn. Blond hair tussled from sleep
and wearing light cotton pajamas and rubber boots, we would grab our buckets
and “help”. My uncle would let us milk the cows, a task that I fancied myself
quite good at as I managed a few drips of milk out of the patient cow’s teat.
We would help clean the barn and then we would wander back up to the house for
a breakfast with a whole new variety of dry cereals that my mom didn’t ever
buy. Sometimes my grandpa would let me sit on his lap as he drove the tractor
over the fields and would even allow me to hold the steering wheel as we
puttered down a straightaway. I thought I was quite knowledgeable when it came
to farming; after all I had family who farmed and had even spent my summers there.
Oh, how little I really knew. That was fun, this is work.
Shoulders
aching, I stood up slowly, trying to straighten out my back. I’d been working
for several hours and finally had the soil ready for planting. I heard a door
slam and looked up. Out my four year old daughter walked, her blond hair
tussled from the nap she’d just finished. I sighed, remembering why I was doing
this. I can’t give my children the experiences I had as a child on the farm,
even if it was just a glorified, child’s version, but I can show them how a
pumpkin is grown. My daughter smiled when she saw me, absolute trust in her
eyes with no doubt that I will take care of her. This is just a small gesture -
my foray into the creepy crawly, dirty world of gardening – an attempt to
instill in my children even just a small understanding of how our food grows.
That the things in this world do not just appear on our store shelves, ready
for us to consume, but they take time, work and effort. And for that, I will
try, even for just a little while, to forget that I am just a city girl.
Retrospective note: The potatoes turned out great. We were eating them until almost Christmas. The pumpkins, on the other hand, turned to mush before they matured.
