Today I will approach the riveting and exciting subject of gardening. Now, before you skip on to another blog to avoid the risk of being bored into a coma, consider your own proclivity for digging in dirt and the motivation behind it. Do you, as many Americans I know, keep your yard in tip-top shape solely out of fear that the neighbors will form a posse, show up at your door in the dead of night with pitch-forks and torches, and then proceed to tar and feather you for taking down their property value? Or do you actually enjoy dirt, weeds, bugs, and the hot blazing sun, while working bent over like a prostitute? You can probably guess what motivates me.
Our first house was in California, where image is everything. If you didn't have your grass cut to precisely 3.5 inches long and your hedges trimmed as neat as Mr. T's Mohawk, then the neighbors would glare at you and talk behind your back (even more than normal). We moved to Pennsylvania and I got a bit of a reprieve. They don't care about things like weeds, crabgrass or overgrown shrubbery. As long as you keep your yard free of engine blocks, refrigerators and air-conditioners, you're doing better than the average neighbor in my neck of the woods. But I still hate having to mow down the weeds when they start to take over.
I blame my loathing of all things green on my father. He could never do anything on a small scale. When he went through his fish phase, we had wall to wall aquariums in the house. When he wanted chickens, he bought hundreds of the miserable little peckers and became an egg pusher at work. (I had to take care of the beasts, which made me HATE chickens too) And when he decided to be gardener, we produced enough vegetables to feed a third world nation. Guess who got the joy of tilling, planting and weeding a garden the size of Manhattan all summer long? The slaves that came from his loins. I guess I can find solace in the fact that none of my siblings like gardening either. I wasn't the only one he damaged.
In spite of the trauma brought on by my childhood gardening slavery, I will continue to mow, pull weeds, and trim bushes. I will even occasionally plant something (as long as I don't have to water it or feed it - let's not get too crazy). I don't do it because I want to show-off my green thumb or compete for the yard of the year award. I do it so that my neighbors will use their pitch-forks for pitching hay and their torches for lighting their own gardens.
You know, I'll bet that Jes is one of those weirdos who likes digging in the dirt. Maybe that comes from my Hollywood-induced prejudice of the British. I imagine them sitting around bragging about their azaleas, crocuses and petunias while sipping tea. I'm sure that is exactly how my British friend will spend her summer. Tell us all about your motivation, Jes. I'm dying to know.
Jes -
You are correct to think I enjoy gardening, but only when the weather is on my side. I don't mind bugs or muck and I don't do it for my neighbour's sake.
They say 'An English man's home is HIS castle' and I quite agree. If my fellow residents came to my house distraught about my garden, I'd tell them to - 'Get off my land and mind their own damn business.'
I'm grateful that we don't have that kind of pressure here.
I recall a conversation with a Californian - I'd mentioned that I'd been out hanging the washing and they asked me what I meant. Apparently, they use tumble dryers even though the weather is gorgeous. They wouldn't dream of hanging their clothes in the garden. I can't see how that would devalue anyone's house price. It's a totally ridiculous and wasteful thing to do.
I have a little poem here that I think you will appreciate, Don.
Digging
By Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
DB -
Wise man, this Seamus Heaney. I much prefer to plow with the pen. I can have a huge garden more beautiful than Solomon's gardens and more vast than the galaxy in the blink of an eye. And I don't get dirty, sun-burnt, bug-bit or a sore back in the process! Writing is a wondrous thing. But I do love me some garden-fresh veggies - I need to get the slaves of my loins to start digging in the dirt. :P