Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

On our back porch there is a beige box that holds a fan (I think). On top of it I have begun my first foray into gardening. Or really, I shouldn't say my first--I had a patch of dirt once, outside of one of our houses, where I attempted to grow the pansies my mother gave me. Apparently pansies don't like full, blazing sun all day long because I succeeded in roasting them, but that was about it. And of course, there was the summer we had a vegetable garden in our backyard. All that remains of that is a ridiculously adorable picture of the four of us kids crowded around a squash. Apparently we grew tomatoes and squash and I remember pumpkin blossoms. And once we grew something we never expected because it grew from the compost we made.



My grandmothers were always tending to something they grew, my maternal one grew tomatoes and sunflowers in the little plots by her door. My paternal one had a garden with lemongrass, a koi pond and a stretch of vegetables staked out on the other side of the house. She was always tending to the garden. I even have a birthday card that says 'Oops, we forgot!' And inside her excuse is that the garden's been keeping her busy.


Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to try my hand at growing things, but I was always too busy reading a book, or going for a swim, or hanging out with friends to bother with it. And it seemed so antiquated. Who was I? A little old lady in a floppy hat with flower print gloves? Who gardens these days? When my mom was weeding it just looked like a pain, hot, sweaty and without much happening. She always got poison ivy all over her hands, too.


But now I have my own herb garden calling to me every time I make tomato sauce or a sandwich with chicken, mozzerella and tomatoes. A strawberry plant is producing little green sprouts that will turn into ripe strawberries if I can be patient, and I feel as excited and proud as if I was making them grow myself. I sort of get how someone could feel like a garden is a home, a child, a friend. Sometimes I go outside just hoping it needs watering. Or just to look at the blossoms on my tomato plant that haven't even started to open. And the visions of one day increasing my garden keep coming. I see beets and carrots and...other vegetable things. And raspberry brambles and blackberries, just like we had in our yard. But no cucumbers. Not ever.