Finding joy in home-grown vegetables and hand-watering my garden

Mid-July 2012

 

[Note to readers, since this column was originally published, we have set up a drip watering system for the vegetable beds -- but I still water my front-yard flower gardens by hand.]

 

Our daughter and I enjoyed the first artichokes from my vegetable garden at dinner this week. As I trimmed the prickly tops of the leaves before seasoning and steaming the artichokes, I felt like a genuine gardener. I had grown these plants, which resemble sprawling, good-natured cacti, had watered them and weeded their beds. Now I would serve the first harvest (two artichokes – but it’s a harvest to me,) ready for praise and dipping sauces.

I had been surprised when a veteran gardener told me that artichokes are grown as annuals here in northern Idaho. Years ago, I had grown them in the Seattle area as perennials, wintering them over and welcoming them back in the spring. Within a few years of planting, my artichokes were ringers for the hefty, thick-leafed ones at the grocery store.

The artichokes I’m growing here in Moscow are more delicate, with thinner leaves and a “greener,” less nutty flavor. I confess that I prefer the more mature ones, and will still buy them at the store this fall, when my own plants have gone to compost heaven after the first killing frost. But home-grown vegetables add an extra contentment to dinner time.

We’re also eating a variety of home-grown lettuce in our salads and learning the need to share with our neighbors. In the case of my lettuce patch, the neighbor apparently most in need of garden greens has long, floppy ears and a brown cottontail.

When I checked the lettuce recently, I noticed that the newly mature heads looked ragged. At first I laid the blame on unknown insects who had probably laid siege from under the soil. But the plants weren’t fully destroyed, and their cores looked healthy. Instead, the lettuce looked chewed; when I looked more closely, I could see teeth marks on some of the leaves.

A few weeks ago, I noticed the neighborhood rabbit in the neighbors’ yard. Its cheeks were so full of cherries that it might have had mumps. But a bunny cannot live by cherries alone, so it probably wriggled under the fence and found my lettuce patch. (Note to rabbits: the carrots won’t be ready for another month.)

Most impetuous gardeners don’t need to produce perfect crops or magazine-cover bouquets to find joy in what we do. When we're outdoors, on our knees in the Church of Dirt and Flowers, we can lose ourselves in the small, simple acts of pulling a weed or guiding the flow of water onto our plants. We can set our imaginations free to picture the jack-o-lanterns our children or grandchildren will carve from our pumpkin patches. If the pumpkins turn out to be puny, lumpy or lop-sided, no one will care too much. We can accept our tendency to plant too much zucchini, and take delight from giving some of it away. (And we will identify with stories from mid-West friends, who say they never leave their car windows rolled down in August, for fear of surprise gifts of the long green squash, tossed onto their front seats.)

I understand my late father-in-laws preference for hand-watering his huge vegetable garden, even though he knew a drip- or sprinkler system would be easier and quicker. “I have time, Sydney,” he would say, smiling. “And if not, I’ll make time.”

A sprinkler would be easier for my own eight raised vegetable beds, too. I wouldn’t have to lug the long length of hose out to the side yard, or attach the water wand, or spend part of a morning or evening in the sunshine, taking care of the plants I’m growing. I wouldn’t be out there to notice the latest missile-size zucchini that have popped up overnight. Or to note the subtle color changes on the tomatoes and the pumpkins every day. Or to daydream about whether to accept the challenge of growing watermelons next summer.

If I used a sprinkler on my flower gardens, I could be inside doing laundry. Or ironing. Instead, I wander among the flowers with my water wand, noting which roses need dead-heading, which plants the hummingbirds favor, and whether the bird bath needs more water. I can pause to find joy in the red, purple and yellow waves of color in the perennial bed, and to wonder if I’d be rushing the season by adding autumn-toned bronze and russet chrysanthemums.

For gardeners, there is always another season. So I have time to hand-water my gardens. And, if not, I’ll make time.