“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” – Cicero

 

Did Cicero have help with his garden?  No family I’ll assume…

I prepared my raised beds and have seeded two of them with a variety of vegetables.  I purchased numerous small vegetable plants from Home Depot to transplant in the other four beds.  I’m hoping the guy I hired to help with the drip watering system made it work well enough to keep things growing. He did tell me I better hand water the transplants the first week or so to make sure they take root.  I stayed away from flowers again.  Except for sunflowers…

There is something strange about the way I feel about flowers.  I love them.  I really, really like rose bushes and dahlias, sweet peas, gladiolas, and irises, but I planted no flowers in the garden again this year.  I have no flowers on this property aside from a creeping rose vine over one of the garden entrances that is really annoying and not very pretty.  It’s almost as annoying as my artichoke plant that is gigantic right now and partially blocks one of the gates.  It has the nerve not to bear a single artichoke and blocks the sun from the beds in the afternoon.  I scowled at it today and vowed its days are numbered.  I think I’m just not ready for flowers at this point.  Flowers are for people who hang up pictures…

I think Cicero and I would have gotten along very well.  I LOVE to be in the garden.  I wish I had time to read every day too.  I have books in my own library I long to read and those I want to read again.  I have books on building and maintaining a productive garden, though I haven’t read them.  I’m just in the “wing it” mode.  Cicero probably was counting the works he wrote himself, right?  So am I.

The man who lived here before me was an architect and built a very large enclosed garden with two levels, one for the beds and one for the trees.  He knew the animals around here would devour everything if they could get in.  Chicken wire, double-layered in some parts, covers the whole enclosure except for an opening in the back corner of the tree section so trapped birds can get out.  Nobody’s perfect when it comes to closing doors or gates (especially my kids) so birds do get in.  I watched a little bird trapped inside once.  After frantic attempts to free himself, he found his escape.  The builder who lived here was one smart cookie.

Anyway, the height of the area with the trees is probably twenty feet.  The garden actually has a third section which I tend to ignore because you have to walk through the door with the annoying rose arch and get snagged with thorns or spider webs to get in.  There are only two scrawny citrus trees and the unappreciated rose vine in there.  But like I said, I basically ignore that area.  The space with the six raised beds also has a nice sized garden shed which I never really cleaned out as I would like, but its a nice thought.   You walk through the bed area and up stone steps into the tree section.  The trees are getting me excited.  I examined them today, and they all have flowers.  Apricot, cherry, pear, plum, and three kinds of apple trees are covered with blooms.  The grape and raspberry vines look like they will try again this year.  They didn’t bear much fruit last season.  There is another small enclosed garden (with no roof) that I won’t talk about now, except to say it had a bounty of grapes last year that yielded some of the best grape juice I ever tasted.  I have a real garden.  I don’t have a lot of time to work on it, so I’ll tell you that I can plant a lot and reap relatively little.  But each year, if I get to stay here, I will do better.  I know that.

If you have ever had a garden and ate the fruits of your labor, you know what I mean when I say there is no comparison.  A homegrown tomato is so far from what you get from a market, it’s almost like it’s a different food.  Something that’s not a tomato, but an explosion of flavor with layers you can’t count.  Every variety has a special trait.  Some are so sweet, you eat them like treats.  Some are actually meaty or nutty or tart…   I like to eat them slowly with or without salt, and if I’m feeling decadent, with a little olive oil, fresh ground pepper, and balsamic vinegar.  Amazing…  Add some fresh chopped basil and its a pleasure rivalling…  hmm… well…

Fresh garden fare is a simply marvelous thing to partake of.  Picking the apples off the tree and rinsing them off (or not) to take that first timid bite (because you always have doubt) is so fun!!!  If you know anything about produce, you have a pretty good idea when things are ripe.  Who picks white strawberries, you know???  Or green oranges??  But when YOU grow the food, it means something!  Vegetables NEED to be eaten.  Even my little kids would eat green beans if they picked and cleaned before I cooked and served them.  We don’t have to mention berries… No chance berries last long enough to make jam.  Every time you water, you eat all the ripe ones.  Was Cicero only talking about non-edible gardens?

Working in the garden is a joy in its own way.  The scent of the turned soil and the foliage that always leaves the air with its argument after you rustle through to steal the goods is so beautiful…  The physical labor of maintaining your garden is part of that joy.  It feels good.  The harder you work, the better the results.  You do reap what you sow.  There’s tangible profit that you take away from the garden itself.  And it will keep giving you more to take away and share with those you love.  It’s such a sweet relationship.  You soon love your garden like a family member.

Gardens that are not for consumption encourage a different kind of pleasure.  Walking through a colorful array of flowers and greenery really can make you feel lighter, meditative and at peace.  If I have one regret about that kind of garden, it would be that I never made love in one.