No, this isn’t a morality piece. While I prize my own ego, I am also cognizant of its divers of idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes, its riotous diversions and subversions, and, therefore, echo T S Eliot’s famous query in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, so how shall I presume?
This morning my garden awaits the first of many days of unseasonably high temperatures, which local weather stations have forecast for the next one to two weeks. This part of North Carolina is already languishing in severe drought; each day we fail to receive any significant or sustained rainfall we are in danger of worsening conditions, which, if they persist, will plummet the piedmont triad into the most extreme category of drought. Presently, the consensus among meteorologists and environmentalists fixes our water shortfall at nearly 3.5 inches this year; this figure is greater than the same measurement at this period last year, and even more disparaging is the fact that last year was one of the driest seasons we have had for some time. While the local lakes and rivers have visibly rebounded from the benefit of a fair amount of early rainfall, aquifers and groundwater supplies lag far behind the levels that may be sufficient to permit recreational activities to resume on lakes and rivers. Several cities and municipalities erred when conservation restrictions were lifted prematurely instead of proceeding cautiously when evaluating the long term effects of the rain we received earlier this spring. I garden organically relying on organic fertilizer and compost made from nearly everything that I can layer into the various piles comprised of yard waste from pruning plants and shrubs, food scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, even the spent barley from my batches of homemade beer. Most of the garden vegetables benefit from copious amounts of mulch added over
layers of newspapers, which helps to eliminate weeds and retain moisture in the underlying soil. When newspapers eliminated heavy metals from the inks used on newsprint, I started saving bags of newspaper to use in the garden and putting only what I had left over into recycling bins. If I had a better supply of composted leaves, I’d eliminate tilling altogether and employ the methods of sheet composting made popular with the approach that Permaculture uses to grow plants and vegetables. However, I must add that I am quite proud of my 33 year old genuine Troy-built horse model tiller.
My family had a garden about as far back as my memory can be reliably trusted to recall. Both sets of grandparents had large, diverse gardens, so between the Sicilians and the German-Irish influence it was almost inevitable that I would be drawn to that activity, but with a range of plant variety that reflected the characteristics of both .
Besides, who can resist the thrall one one finds oneself under as one encourages life to spring from the soil, or submits to the lure of the Adamic mythos, the seductive metaphor which offers to refresh the tired soul in the morning mist of the Garden of Eden.
The roll call of fruits and vegetables in my garden proceeds from asparagus to zucchini. There was a time when I spent the cold winter months poring over seed catalogs as I lay the tentative plan for our garden in the spring. While I still leaf through the occasional Henry Fields or Gurneys in my magazine rack, I buy most of my seeds and plants (those that I don’t start myself) from a local seed store that I have frequented for almost 38 years; it is probably just my imagination but the seeds and seedlings I purchase there always seem to grow very well.
As temperatures rise above 90 and inch toward 100 in the next day or two, I will stress, though not nearly as much as my plants, over the effects of the unrelenting scouring that the Carolina sun can produce. Despite the oppressive heat, another day or two will offer the first harvest of squash, meanwhile the asparagus is already resting until next year as we have enjoyed its bounty many times this spring. Corn and tomatoes around the fourth of July usher in a festival of mouth-watering meals from the garden’s daily provisions. We have already begun to anticipate our summer splurge of BLT’s as we wait impatiently for the first luscious tomatoes to ripen. I like corn picked fresh and consumed right there in the rows but unshucked corn popped into the microwave for a few minutes yields marvelously fresh results, much better than water-logging those tasty kernels in a pot of boiling water. Ah, but there are so many firsts each year with a garden: blueberries more abundant than any preceding year that I can recall; blackberries for jam and wine; apples for apple butter nearer the fall; and, of course, the ever treacherous process of gathering the ripe, turgid crimson “tunas” from our massive prickly pear cactus for jelly and pancake syrup. The work to tend the garden is omnipresent as are those tasks most associated with the harvest: freezing, canning, and drying to preserve what is left over and shared with friends and family. So it was a special treat this morning for us to celebrate another seasonal first and top our homemade granola with mounds of fresh raspberries from our garden!
