The Impossible Garden

~ This article first appeared in The Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

A good Western Pennsylvania garden is at its most verdant during the second half of February when the plot exists solely in the mind of a gardener long cooped up against the cold.

By the first of May no such illusion exists.  In May, the garden is impossible.

Inaccurately touted as a sign of hope and new life, the small, spindly squeaks of vegetation poking here and there through bare earth are hardly a reassurance of any kind, instead causing angst due to the likely destruction of such fragile sprouts.  The weather during planting season will behave normally, although nobody can remember a time in history when it was this wet or that dry (the year previous, apparently, beyond the accurate grasp of human memory), and all of the Unprecedented Conditions do their best to snuff out the bean sprouts while they’re making their debut.  The cucumbers will be snipped by some thief in the night, found in the morning on their sides like miniature two-leafed trees felled by loggers with tiny axes.  And the celery?  Well, we know we planted it but darned if anyone can remember where.  It never came up.  We thought it would come up.

I stand hopeless in the garden in May.  Every deadline on my fancy planting calendar has long gone by and everything listed as needing planted has died.  My family’s tradition is to plant in a panic either early in the morning or late in the evening, more recently accompanied by a screaming infant protesting a delayed breakfast or a missed bedtime, and we do so in the manner of a green chef improvising soup that needs served immediately to a waiting customer: Just shake out the contents of each packet and hope against hope that the result is soup.  Or, in our case, a garden.  I admit to my wife, late at night when nobody can hear, that I’m glad she has a job because we would surely starve without it.

The garden in May is impossible.

Aren’t we, then, so very grateful for June?

It is a wonder beyond comprehension how the disaster of May can transform into abundance with such a short time to do it.  I vividly remember towering over an empty plot measuring eight feet by eight feet and thinking aloud “Five seeds?  Just five little seeds in all this?  Oh, it will never work…”  Today we cannot squeeze between the squash plants and the fence, and we’re hauling yellow armloads up to the kitchen every day.  The butternut squash – my very favorite – are reaching like an octopus out through the fence on one side and across the way on the other to visit our tomatoes.  The watermelons have declared a territory war on the peppers and seem to be winning.  I want the peppers but a good watermelon is a temptation too great and so I haven’t trimmed back the vines.  We have beets the size of basketballs and if someone would just go ahead and Roundup the cucumber vines that would be good because there is not room in the house for more cucumbers and yet we are picking baskets every day.

In May, limited by doubt, I plant many things close together.  When June hands the baton to July I am reminded that the seasons change, and perhaps I should have used the space I was given more wisely.  The garden has become vibrant.

There is not at this point in my life a greater satisfaction than watching our five year old son, Henry, root through the mess of vegetation in search of vegetables that he will undoubtedly refuse to eat.  We pick beans together, the boy on one side and me on the other, one bowl filling rapidly and the other containing a half bean, a stem, some interesting looking stones, tree bark, and a snail.  When I’ve completed my row I must feign interest in something strategically nearby and ease towards Henry’s zone, which he has declared thoroughly gleaned and will therefore take offense at anyone daring a second look, and begin picking once again.  As I drag out hundreds left by the youngster he will poke through the bushes I picked and mention, disapprovingly, that I missed one.  Rats.

Henry incorporates cutting shears into every garden activity.  We keep a close eye on him to ensure longevity of vines and fingers.  Olive puts debris in her mouth, chokes on it, and hurls.  There was a snake in the upper garden once and so Gina will not go in, instead standing immediately outside the fence that is not in any way a barrier for the Snake Once Spotted should it choose to pay her a visit.  Our kitchen is completely overwhelmed with good things to eat.  We’re actually getting a little tense about all of the food pilling in.  It needs canned.  Or pickled.  Or eaten.

The garden in May is just as it should be.  It shatters fantasy conjured during the cold months and places us back in reality.  And then, working from that humble spot, it will give us more than we ever dreamed possible.  The garden, apparently, knows that the year previous is beyond the grasp of accurate human memory and so it gracefully repeats the same show with renewed enthusiasm.  How lucky we are to have front row seats.