garden

For years my garden was something I took pride in and grew great plants. The first garden here was smol, an old wheelbarrow and a large oak stump that had a hollow in the middle. They survived for a few years then I expanded, and grew tomatoes and peppers in a small plot. This, too, was expanded, and four years ago I decided to go big, and turned a chunk of my front yard into a miniature farm. Three growing seasons ago, I expanded again. Things went to hell on me

Heat got my garden three years ago, and only the peppers survived, and not all of them did. Two years ago, we had hurricanes that flooded the garden and killed everything. Last year, an eleven inch rain killed every plant I owned. Then the hurricanes came to rid me of the notions I was going to grow anything at all.

Weeds took over and I couldn’t be bothered with trying to keep the dead garden in shape. The back of the property was flooded, trees were dying and falling and there was no respite from the never endingrain.

Few weeks ago, I stood in front of the tangled mess that was a garden, a good garden, and I wondered how much work it would be to just get it cleared. Did I want to try again, really? I took the garden rake out and dug up a large weed that looked somewhat like an alien creature, and maybe it had drowned, too.

I smelled the dirt.

Garden dirt, when dirt is done right, smells different.

I know this dirt. Most of it came from the compost pile that is still under a foot of water. I hauled wagon loads to the garden to make the soil deeper, to give the garden a chance to have better root systems, and earthworms by the score tagged along.

The soil is good, made better by the coffee grounds I tossed in, and there I found some random piece of plastic, an ingredient I worked hard to rid the garden of for years. I pulled up a patch of grass, knocked the dirt off the roots and squeezed it in my hand. I made this dirt. Weather took my plants away, killed the tomatoes first, then the squash, and finally the okra and peppers, but the dirt is still here.

I sent my plant person a text and she send back, “I wondered where you were.” But the hurricanes ravaged her hot house. She has tomatoes, squash and okra, but no peppers. I stop by the next day, and she loads me up with plants, and back home, in the freshly cleared garden, I do what I have always done in the Spring. I start a garden.

Yeah, I’m oh for three in the last three seasons. Yeah, hurricanes are stronger and coming more frequently. But part of me that matters wants to grow stuff I can eat and share with my friends.

I’m back.

Take Care,

Mike