June 4, 2011
During
the winter, when we impetuous gardeners are most susceptible to
fantasy, I ordered three tomato plants from my favorite catalog.
These plants promised the true tomato-y flavor of the heritage
Brandywine, the Italian cooking appeal of the San Marzano Gigante,
and the just plain cool name of the Japanese Black Trifele. The
selling point, for me, was that each variety had been grafted onto
sturdy, reliable tomato plant stock.
After
my tomato triumph, I decided to take a final glance through the
catalog, and ended up ordering seed packets. Many seed packets.
Later, I bought more seeds from local nurseries here in north Idaho.
Many more seeds.
The
tomato plants arrived recently, and I realized that I had become a
character in what should be a grownup edition of a popular set of
children’s books. The first in the series, If You Give a Mouse
a Cookie, follows a little boy through an exhausting day of
cleaning up the results of offering a mouse a cookie. The cookie
leads to a request for an accompanying glass of milk – with a
straw. Then a napkin, nail scissors, a broom, a place to take a nap
– plus a naptime story with pictures. Which leads to the mouse’s
need for paper and crayons, and then a demand to hang his original
art on the refrigerator. Then the mouse gets thirsty again and asks
for a glass of milk – and another cookie.
The
story ends with the worn-out little boy sound asleep, surrounded by
all the mess and chaos the mouse has created. And it all started
with one impetuous act: offering a mouse a cookie. For me, it was
ordering three tomato plants.
It’s
June now, and my shimmery, winter garden-fantasy has turned all too
clear in the late-spring sunshine. I have planted most of my flower
seeds in two new garden beds: sweet peas, hollyhocks, sunflowers, and
perennials. All I needed to do to create the new gardens was to dig
up two long, narrow stretches of sod, break up the dirt clods, buy
topsoil and compost, haul the big bags into the backyard, hand-mix
the topsoil and compost into the newly dug beds, plant the seeds, and
water thoroughly.
Almost
forgot – I also had to buy and set up forty feet of sturdy, though
decorative, knee-high fencing to deter a member of my garden staff
(Rags, our Old English sheepdog) from bounding into the new planting
beds during his daily nut-out around the backyard.
The
flower seeds are coming up well along the fences. But now I still
have vegetable seeds. And three tomato plants. Do you see where
this is going?
To
plant a vegetable garden this summer, all I’d have to do is clear
out a large and scary jungle (there are blood-sucking bugs in there!)
of dandelions, quack grass, branches, and weeds, as well as bushes
and small trees. The lilacs in there would need transplanting to the
west fence, so they wouldn’t block the vegetables from the sun.
Also, a few volunteer maple trees need to be moved. And I couldn’t
risk losing the vintage peonies by trying to transplant them now, so
they’ll have to stay where they are.
Tomatoes
need a lot of sun, so I’ll have to ask my husband to build raised
beds for them, and for the corn, beans, lettuce, garlic, pumpkins,
and raspberries. Oh—I’ll also have to move the mulch pile,
shovelful by shovelful, because it’s smack in the middle of the
raised beds’ site.
I’ll
need at least one more hose, probably two, to extend out to the new
garden for watering all the crops. Also, I’ll have to write
reminders in my daily planner, because I won’t be able to see the
vegetable garden from the backyard. Sometimes, for impetuous
gardeners, it’s Out of Sight, Out of Mind, and I Forgot to Water
the Tomatoes.
Because
I was already worrying about the fate of my helpless tomatoes, I
planted them in three big pots on our back patio. It’s sunny
there, and the hose is nearby. With great optimism, I stuck a big
honker of a tomato cage into each of the planters and am assuming my
anemic little guys will grow green muscles over the summer and climb
high up the rungs.
But
what about the unplanted vegetable and pumpkin seeds, the unbought
raspberry plants, the unbuilt raised beds, the unweeded jungle, the
untransplanted lilacs, and the unrealistic gardener whose fantasy has
grown impossible?
The
Rozen vegetable and fruit crops will be a little late this year; look
for them in 2012. With all this reality crashing down onto my head,
I think I need a cookie – and a cup of tea to go with it. And
maybe another tomato plant.
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