Not literally, mind you. My command of the Italian language spans from the verbal butchery of the entree menu at Magiano's all the way to emphatically gesturing "MARGHARHETTI!" a la Eli Roth from Inglourious Basterds. No, my perception of kinship rests on that hypnotic, zen-like infatuation with the garden.
(Yep, it's another garden post. C'mon, it was either that or beer.)
It's hard to explain the urge to simply be in the garden once it's planted. Certainly you're not going to see change as it happens; it's a very close cousin to watching the grass grow. And there's only so much work to be done if you've planned right; straighten a stake here, pluck a few weeds there, but ideally, foresight and lessons learned have done the heavy lifting thus far.
For a while I found excuses to putter, kneeling in to look closer at leaves and stalks, until I stopped to ask--why?
It's hubris to think that the miracle of a garden rests in the hands of the gardener, but their role is nevertheless a crucial one..We build boxes, haul soil, and pluck weeds in service of a minute cradle of life, running interference against insatiable entropy so that infantile stalks and leaves can strive toward the sun. We put dozens of species of weed and vermin to the proverbial torch for the sake of the one we wish to see rise, and if we do it right we can put food on the table--which is as simple a concept as it is powerful, considering that in 2020 a potato has a pretty good shot of traveling further in its lifetime than the person eating it.
By its existence alone, there are already so many primal forces at play in my ninety-four square feet of garden--those of construction, creation, conscious production and consumption, and even the interplay of life, both for my sake and its own. Why do I feel this impulse to add to it without cessation? I alone, among all the beasts that were born and bred, seized a patch of land, with its grass and soil and worms, and changed it, shaped it against the streams of inertia and Darwinian circumstance to grow this and not that, and grow it to fullness and fruition. Why, when I've stepped out of the natural cycle to spin a tiny one of my own, can I not step out of it?
This all wheeled through my head as I straightened up, my knee digging a crater into the topsoil next to the squash. I went inside, picked up an old favorite book, and went back out with a cup of tea in hand to sit next to the garden. I put up my feet, opened it to the bookmark, and enjoyed the breeze as it rustled through the lily at the end of the lowest box.
Gorlami.
Earlier today:
I threw up a pair of frames for the spaghetti squash. Due to space constraints I made them pretty vertical, knowing that sometime in mid-late July I'd have to cut out some cloth holders for what I hope will be several pound squashes. A few pallet boards and some leftover chicken wire...
...and we have a solid addition. The one pictured is completely vertical; the one about two feet off camera to the left is at a 75 degree pitch. Tomorrow I hope to add one for the heirloom and one for the Japanese egg plant in the lower bed.
And we have first growth! Three of the four potatoes I planted have woken up, and I have hopes for the fourth. Once they reach a foot I'll add the next layer and see how well this idea works.
And, though I was probably still working on solid food when this was planted, I do love the week or so when I walk out to see this every morning:
Listening to: Down and Out in New York City by James Brown
Reading; A Soldier in the Great War by Mark Helprin
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