My Summer in a Garden: Wonder and Reality

I am astonished that I am weeding and watering my garden. From the time I was little until the time I went away to college, my mother insisted that I work in the garden, and I did not look forward to the tedious labor: especially the task of pulling tiny weeds from rows of tiny carrots! Only in my adulthood—after many years of university education and university teaching—have I returned to growing vegetables, and I can hardly get enough of the good feeling that working in the earth invokes for me.

On May 24th, Plants Defining Rows in My Garden

So I stride forth of an early morning, hoe in hand, sprinkling buckets nearby, and survey the dominion of beets and squash. I will become them; they, me. After all, we are what we eat. When I look closely at the beans forming like slow-motion balloons, I am seeing the future cells of my body. Oh, and did I mention I use no insecticide, herbicide, or fungicide on my vegetables? I am afraid that they must face life without such protections. When their matter mixes with mine and becomes me after lunch or dinner, they bring with them no harmful chemicals to inflict illness or disease on me.

On June 5th, Weeds Overtaking My Garden

In “A Song of the Rolling Earth,” Walt Whitman wrote that “the substantial words are in the ground and sea, / They are in the air, they are in you.” He suggested that the words I am using now are feeble and pale in comparison to the strong and vibrant “words” on which they are modeled. Whitman continued, “Human bodies are words,” more substantial than the words I am forming here. Whitman said, “Air, soil, water, fire—those are words, / I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs” even as I was just saying about becoming what I have for dinner. Leave it to Whitman to use the metaphor of words, themselves metaphors, to signify the most profound meanings and the most fundamental communication!

On June 5th, My Garden After Meticulous Hoeing

For gardening is meaningful communication with the earth. Each glistening pebble I find in the rows attests to vast geological processes that have brought us together in this instant. Every dancing butterfly I glimpse above the flowers speaks about miraculous biological changes that have transformed caterpillars into fluttering splashes of vivid color. All the stems and leaves around me give voice to rock, water, sun, and wind.

And the baby rabbit I discover watching me is a triumph of living art! My artistic ability is not equal to the challenge of making a twitching rabbit. Yet the universe knows how to create such intricate lives!

When I walk into my garden each day, I am prepared for amazement. Wonders surround me, and I stand sampling the fresh air in their midst. Even as I reflect on the spiritual tonic that gardening has become for me, I must confront realities. My cucumbers are not doing well. They appear to be wilting, even with abundant rainfall. As I have seen no cucumber beetles, I am unable to diagnose the cause of the problem. Animals continue to sample the plants, even eating the tops off one or two sunflowers; the critters have been most devastating to the beans, it seems.

Garden After Rain on June 12: A Few Wonderful Plants

Even though I have gardened for enough years to recognize that all my gardens are similar, I also acknowledge that different years bring different gardens. This year, I will focus my appreciation on a few plants and not spread my gratitude over multitudes crowded into sprawling rows. Why not? Because many seeds did not sprout. Gaps are everywhere and probably will not fill in even when the plants are mature.

Despite my poor yields, I have already been enjoying mustard greens in fresh salads. The mesclun seeds that I planted included five varieties: Beet Bull’s Blood, Spinach Bloomsdale Long Standing, Lettuce Black Seeded Simpson, Lettuce Red Salad Bowl, and Mustard Tendergreen. The mustard predominated, with a few of the green lettuce leaves in between. I find no trace of the beets, the spinach, or the red lettuce. The mustard leaves have what I would describe as a spicy note. Adding the mustard to mixed salad that I have bought at the grocery store has brightened lots of lunches. Recently, I noticed that the mustard leaves are beginning to toughen and become bitter, but I can see that other vegetables will soon be ready to harvest.

So, this year, Whitman might say that my patch of earth is singing simple songs, not grand oratorios as in past summers. I am learning that simplicity can be the proverbial spice of life.

Why I Plant Raspberries

One of my favorite memories of growing up was when my mother went berrying in the summer. My brother and I piled into the car, and our mother drove to a deserted farm that had become overgrown with blackberry vines. Except for being startled by an occasional snake, we spent a dreamy morning peacefully filling our buckets with plump berries—and eating more than we dropped in our buckets! I say “dreamy” because there is no way to race through a patch of berries. Thorns cover the canes, and the picker of berries must be as graceful as the canes themselves and proceed with slow, thoughtful movements, if scratches are to be avoided.

Now I grow red raspberries, and they are among the easiest plants to establish. My raspberries have been taking over large sections of my yard for several years now, and I don’t mind a bit! They supply me with seemingly endless streams of berries in those wonderful hot months that bring out the fullest flavor of raspberries. I am reminded of Walt Whitman, the great American poet whose work was the focus of my dissertation, and whose life and poetry were the subject of one of my courses that I taught for many exuberant years; In Specimen Days for June 21 in 1882, Whitman wrote about his “favorite dish, currants and raspberries, mixed, sugar’d, fresh and ripe from the bushes—I pick ‘em myself.” The canes form artistic arches. Where they touch the soil, they form roots. The part with the roots can be cut from the rest of the cane and given a shallow planting, thereby expanding the berry patch with minimal effort.

A Few Jars of My Raspberry Jam

 

Berries form on two-year-old canes. After harvesting the berries, I cut away the canes that held them. I am careful to leave the springy, new canes that have not yet borne fruit; those canes will give me the next year’s crop. Hsün Tzu (whose name is often given as Xunzi) was born around 313 or 310 BC and died between 238 and 220 BC; philosophers often include his work with that of Confucius and Mencius in the development of Confucian thought. Hsün Tzu wrote about a raspberry vine standing upright without needing to be staked; his metaphor represented Confucius who, at age 70, had perfectly blended his inborn nature and his philosophical training. I hope, when I am that age, my thinking and my nature will likewise be indistinguishable from one another; for the time being, I can opine that the selection of a raspberry vine to represent a well-respected philosopher is most fortunate! The supple cane—grounded yet free, arching delicately, and bringing health and happiness—is joyously symbolic of wisdom.  

Dried red raspberry leaves can be steeped in boiling water for fifteen minutes to form a “tea” that can be effective as an eye wash. I am told that such use of an infusion of dried raspberry leaves was practiced among some groups of Native Americans. The astringent quality of the tannin in the leaves helps to heal styes. Many websites describe the benefits of raspberry leaves for pregnant women.

Morning is the best time to harvest raspberries, provided that they are not wet. In the hours before the sun beats down on them, they offer their richest taste.