The Violent Virtues of Gardening

Hello Gentle Reader

Gardening carries the weighty air of being either chore or a product of desperate boredom. As a child my mother kept a garden—both flower and vegetable. The front flowerbeds were filled with petunias; there was the perennial rose bush (though it was annihilated in a hail storm after sixteen years of rule), which has since been replaced by three bleeding hearts; the now extinct golden rod, and numerous trumpeting lilies from Asiatic to Tiger; and the purple columbine which spread and sprouted all over. The flower pots grew a plethora of annuals, the most common once again being a multitude of petunias—from white to pink, to purple and red; then mixed with numerous other nameless flowers, which I never planned on knowing the name of and never did. These flowers and plants were my mother’s greatest hobby in the summer. She’d be out planting and watering, and then weeding. The lawn was of course my father’s greatest joy or priority, when it came to gardening—or his preferred semantic: landscaping. Once a week the mower would be out and cutting the grass; usually on a Saturday morning, after breakfast and coffee, meaning the lawn was being cut at nine ‘O’clock sharp. In the evening for a half-hour on each side, the lawn was watered, until it ran into the street. In the back my father would give a similar treatment, with a cut and water in the evening. In the back facing south, was my mother’s vegetable garden which grew a variety of vegetables starting with the potatoes on the far east, before moving to cucumbers and zucchini, then came a row of radishes (the quickest to grow), then a couple row of carrots, followed by onions, lettuce, Swiss chard, and on the far west side ending with beets and maybe a row of squash.

When summer rolled around in my childhood it always brought to mind the positive and the negatives of the sunshine reprieve. First positive, no more school for two months—which back then felt like ages. This meant time for hanging out with friends and doing activities, maybe reading a book or two, and of course sleeping in, in the mornings. Afterwards the list became a downhill thought process of other expectations and realities. First, chores. Come summer with no homework meant more household chores—such as helping cut the grass or help plant, water and of course weed the garden; assist in cleaning the house and making dinners. Then second came the dreaded thought of long-haul car rides to visit relatives in far flung provinces, in either a gilded cage or a desolate landscape; this meant eight to ten hours in a vehicle with my family, not including rest stops, which could always add a further fifteen to thirty minutes to the trip; and after the trip there, there is always the return trip home, which meant: the lawn needed to be cut, the plants watered and the garden would need even more weeding then before we left. Then there is always the debate on whether or not to go camping—one of my most dreaded thoughts of my youth; outdoors in isolation (at least relative to home and people we knew), where we sat around fires, slept in a tent or two, and had showers in some communal bath house (thankfully with private stalls—if we were lucky). This usually resulted in me getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, smelling like a cat rescued from a burning house, and being burned by the sun on at least three different occasions—the point at the end of it all was nature to tell me: it despised me, it hated me. Of course if we went camping and got back from camping then once again: the lawn would needed to be mowed, plants would need to be watered, and the garden would once again require more attention than when we’d left it.

With most chores I found a way to cunningly weasel my way out of it. After numerous attempts at shredding the lawn with the mower and the weed-whacker, my father in blatant red faced irritation and frustration would remove me from the power tools and tell me to go find something else to do, before complaining to my mother, who would take the opportunity to pull me into the garden, which was always in a constant battle of being overrun with weeds. I’d be drug along to the back of the yard, into the border of the garden, where I was to survey the landscape from potato to beet or squash; I surveyed this leafy nursey like domestic jungle.

Gardening is a violent pastime. One in which I think an individual either thoroughly enjoys or somehow finds therapeutic. While on the other hand is nothing more than a usual weekend or evening chore. It requires a detailed discriminate eye, to tell the difference between vegetable and weed. This willful weakness, was one of my many attempts at trying to get out of gardening, either by mistakenly pulling a weak vegetable over a weed—or in some cases a couple of vegetables instead of weeds, but no matter how many I would attempt to pull or how frustrated I would make my mother, I was expected to put in my twenty-minutes of sentencing and help out with the weeding, before being allowed to tackle some other chore, like vacuuming the house, doing the dishes, or cleaning a bathroom, before being released from my sentence and allowed to spend my free time how I wished. Yet come the morning, there was the expectation to help out with the twenty minutes in the garden, before the sun got to hot and burned you. Of course gardening had its positive points as well. Such as harvesting, plucking the ripe and ready plants from the ground and rinsing them with the garden hose to be eaten. Yet, to this day I still remember trying my first radish plucked from its earthen womb, and the kick that red toed vegetable gave me, that my tongue still feels its spicy bite; and still avoid the hellish root even now. My mother also shared her wisdom during these twenty minute intervals and her thoughts on life. One of the most important lessons, it seems was gardening taught patience and hard work. Gardening as she said, taught harvest wisdom, which meant one needed the tenacity in order to plant a garden and then stick with it, through watering and weeding; and when it came closer to autumn, covering it in old blankets to protect the plants from frost. Yet, through it all gardening has remained a relentless chore, and could never be perceived as a hobby or therapeutic relaxing venture.

Now in my much older and mature years, I’ve finally gave gardening a shot—even though in years past I called it the product of desperation born out of boredom. Yet in the spring I planted potatoes, zucchini, carrots, radishes (by my mother’s request), green onion, yellow onion, cauliflower, three tomato plants (by my mother’s request), beans, Swiss chard, lettuce and squash. The planting was not difficult, though not entirely enjoyable. Yet after a couple of weeks it was slightly exciting to see shoots and green leaves pop up in the damp earth of the garden. After a few more weeks they kept on growing with slight more excitement on my part. Perhaps in this early stages, I thought, maybe gardening wasn’t that bad and even had its own merits—after all people have written books on gardening and landscaping, people make professions out of it, and some people (like the my one neighbor) can always be spotted out and about in their yard working diligently to make the flowers bloom and the trees leaf, while ensuring the grass is immaculately green. Then after a couple of more weeks, the weeds had moved in and right at the opportune time, where it became impossible to distinguish vegetable from weed. Through the internet and repeated consultations with my mother I did my best to distinguish which was weed and which were plant, and this time actually attempt to have the detailed discriminating eye in order to accomplish the task.

Armed with a hand held trowel, cultivator, and hoe, I sought to do battle in what was once my garden which was now being overrun with vert vibrant weeds. Needless to say in five minutes I ripped through like a hurricane. I pulled three quarters of forgotten dill, and shredded the entire row of green onions. A few causalities have survived in the carrot row. I mistakenly stepped on a few Swiss chard plants as well as the lettuce. After this few five minutes of carnage and destruction I retired from the garden to sit on the step and reflect on the events that unfolded. I had made quite a mess, and found myself with a renewed hatred towards gardening. Thankfully there was no one around to see my clumsy and chaotic mess, with the exception of one neighbour who apparently enjoys flaunting his gym body in the backyard in the afternoons tanning, while wearing the most minimal swim suit he can squeeze into. I sat on the deck reviewing the devastation I had sown in my patch of idle idyllic Eden, and thought to myself: no wonder Patrica Highsmith enjoyed this as a past time. It’s violent. She could pluck and pull, evict and disregard with her own whimsy. I on the other hand, lacked either conviction or discriminating principles in order to see the subtle differences between the competing flora. As I sipped my coffee, my barely clad neighbour got up, and wrapped his towel around his neck, after which he casually strutted with peacock coolness towards the fence; the scent of tanning lotion wafted into my yard, as he rested on the fence, lifted his sunglasses and nonchalantly posed in his brief swim suit, to survey the garden which had just suffered five minutes of my own Ares like reign. He commented on what happened by simply stating: “not much of a gardener,” before jokingly smiling at me. I took another sip of my coffee before responding that it was not a talent of mine; at which point he laughed and said he only cut the grass, anything that required actual care and attention was beyond his gardening abilities. All I could say was, I should follow a similar path, but have vowed to try again; at which point he lowered his sun glasses smiled and said good luck before heading in doors, all the while slowly strutting in his suit for all to see, while the scent of tanning lotion continued to waft off his tanned body. This entire scene sounds homoerotic but trust me it was more uncomfortable and even slightly infuriating at moments, as I felt as if he were mocking me my attempts to garden and cultivate, grow and eventually harvest.

A couple weeks later I’ve harvested the radishes and sent them back to my mother. My neighbour routinely sunbathes and watches me attempt gardening, while wearing the most minimal suits he can muster. As for the garden its recovering, slowly. The weeds and I are still in a constant battle, but cauliflower has begun to grow, and even florets can be seen. The Swiss chard and lettuce are recovering, and what remains of the dill appears to be growing back healthy. It’s not a lost cause yet, but the entire experience reaffirms a few things with regards to gardening: it’s violent; it’s difficult which requires the tenacity and patience my mother said; and it’s still a past time which I think requires an individual to be so desperately bored in order to seriously consider. In the meantime, it appears to entertain my neighbour, as he sunbathes and smiles at my repeated and defeatist attempts at winning the battle between weed and vegetable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

To which I respond with this: Gardening, is a virtue in which I have yet to discover..

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary