Hope on the windowsill

Some people are just not cut out to garden. My husband is one of those people. He doesn't get it. The dirt. The planning. The watering. The waiting. Why go through the hassle when there's a grocery store less than a mile away? I've never asked him whether his parents gardened. I suppose I should, given that it could clarify this discrepancy in our personalities. His sister has gorgeous flower beds and a few tomato plants each summer. It doesn't seem that he has had much experience with the joy of a fabulous vegetable garden. I feel sorry for him in that he hasn't been thrilled by it all, nor does he enjoy the smell of the soil or the excitement of the first few sprouts of greenery. My mom grew marigolds, and I think she tried her hand at geraniums at some point. My dad did and still does grow tomatoes. A few years ago, he actually did it from seed he kept from the prior year's crop, like a true farmer in the city. Last year, the first year in our house, therefore the first year I could have a garden in the time that Joe and I have been together as a couple, was a horrible year to try to show off my green thumbs. I wanted desperately to justify the effort of my building a raised bed, hauling in the dirt and compost, buying seeds and spending my summer evenings watering. The season was soggy from the start and the month of June had only two days without precipitation, never mind that I was swamped with a few little things like renovating the house so we could move in and oh yeah –planning our June wedding. Darn how life keeps me out of the dirt. I didn’t get my seeds and seedlings into the garden until July. Our season is short here in Maine and when September came, aside from a few snow peas and string beans eaten off the bush, and a handful of radishes and some sad lettuce, I really had no harvest. Some blight or another got to the tomatoes and cukes and the melons never went anywhere.

So with that kind of recent history, why even start it this year? Optimism. I have hope.

Hope and positive thinking got me starting my seeds last weekend, exactly eight weeks before the threat of last frost at the end of May. Anticipation will keep me watering them until the first seedlings emerge. Expectation of the delight of eating outrageously fresh tomatoes will get me on my knees in the soil tomorrow, culling rocks and sticks out of the raised bed and tilling the soil so it can warm some before I plant the first of my cool crops, a first for me this year. A try at planting spinach and lettuce early in the spring may end up proving to have been a waste of my time, in the eyes of some in my household, but I will have learned and will most likely try again next year.

That’s what us gardener types do. We may suffer blight and molds and scorching killing heat and unexpected frosts, but we keep planting. Those of us who have done it before know the rewards of a lush and productive garden. The fragrance that summer tomato vines leave on your hands is heady. Rubbing a leaf of fresh basil can send me back fifteen years to my first garden, a patch of ground where I uncovered asparagus and peppermint, left by a previous caretaker. I tilled and tended to that garden, installing brick walkways, an arbor and a bench for taking in the view. I was elated to be able to pull ears of corn to accompany the steaks on the grill for supper that night and to hang and dry the Thai dragon peppers for winter use. Of course I photographed baskets of harvested peppers and tomatoes, learned how to make sauce, salsa and jalapeño pepper jam, and was incredibly charmed by the whole experience. Having a few years of successful gardening has forever changed the way I anticipate spring. Now I console myself in the winter months with garden books and charts and plans. It is because of gardens past that my living room windowsill is filled with pots of seeds and soil. It is the hope of repeated success and the pleasure of the freshest possible tastes that I keep planting despite the convenience of a world of food right around the corner.

It would be great if my husband would consider my little 4 x 8 obsession a simple blessing, but until he experiences a successful season with me, he is unlikely to march wholeheartedly into the garden. But maybe this will be the year he gets a taste for the fabulous flavors that can come out of his own back yard.