Grateful Gardening

I didn’t know if I should call this post Grateful Garden or Grateful Gardening.  Thinking on it while making dinner, I figured our garden itself might not produce enough to feel truly grateful this season, but the act of gardening always would.  Actions more than outcomes make me feel grateful.

On Owen’s birthday this year, we planted our first garden at our new house.  This isn’t a complete garden, it’s the start of a garden.  Those particular plants, planted on Friday the 13th of June, 2008, were bell peppers, chili peppers, eggplants, parsley, and zuccini.  These are plants I remember from a garden Owen and I sowed when he was 10 years old, when we lived in south Sebastopol.  These plants mean something to me still, though I only eat some of them.  Back then, when we were novice gardeners (I still am, having planted numerous edibles with only moderate outcomes), we chose our plants with care, certain that we would be able to harvest something, anything.  We’re not farmers.  We’re hopeful.  Owen and I were the proud producers of few fruits of our labor more than ten years ago – edible, and therefore beautiful, if not in abundance.

These ten days later since starting our new garden, I’m hopeful we will see the fruits of our efforts again.  Sure, we planted many more vegetables and fruits on Owen’s birthday and since, than those listed above, but that first plot is the most important to me.  I hold memories more dear than food, so the subsequent plots (there are several now) hold less value (though given the price of fresh produce in our local grocery stores, I should pay attention to the energy I put into ANYthing).  Anna, Dave, and I have spent numerous hours planting this garden of hope.  And, we’ve only begun to invest our time and energy into a replacement for grocery store pricing.  We don’t need pallets to bring in our produce.  We need time and a little basket.  We just want to feed our family.  I hope we can. 

I hope I can remember how wonderful it was to dig in the dirt with Owen, when he and I felt that planting our own food was a project worth expending energy.  We had fun.  We didn’t ask for more.  We had everything.  And, occasionally, we got to pluck an eggplant and parsley from the garden.

I’m positive I’m the only one involved in our gardening venture who thinks of it as a memorial to Owen.  I don’t talk about it.  I keep those thoughts to myself, and they are with me throughout each and every day.  After all, Anna wasn’t with us in those early days, and Dave was engaged in other activities.  They are with us now in this project, and the word “grateful” comes to mind when I think of our joint efforts.   Grandma would surely remember the sole eggplant that waited for a recipe befitting our hard work those many years ago…but she’s probably working on her own garden there in her afterlife.  She and Owen are likely fighting over who gets the trowel to dig the next hole, and laughing about how easy it is to dig the hole with your own hands.  Ha ha ha.  Ow, my eye.

Nat checks in on the garden when he comes home from school and work.  He’s glad to see what we’ve been up to, and loves hearing the stories of our agricultural endeavors.  He’s looking forward to flowers, buds, and dinner plates full of energy, love, and sustenance.

I’m thankful my time spent with dirt and seeds is more about memories than eggplants I won’t eat.  With almost every scoop of soil, I feel Owen’s hands next to mine.  I see them.  I hear his laugh.  I watch him sweat.  I cry.  And, I smile.  For, I am grateful for the act of gardening.

We garden as an attachment to the earth, to our ancestors, to our missing loved ones.  I gotta ask.  What will gardening be like in a post-carbon world? 

Song for the night:  Rock ‘n Roll Part II,  Gary Glitter (from London’s New Covent Garden Market…hmmm)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LpHx3gNPoJc

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~ by Linda on June 22, 2008.