"What Draws You to Garden?"

Having lunch with a good friend a few weeks ago, we were discussing a book we had both read and enjoyed called The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst. Published in 2006, it is a compilation of interviews done by the author of a variety of food gardeners. Native Americans, Italian-Americans, Japanese-Americans, gardeners from the Punjab in India, and from Cambodia were questioned as to the gardening practices they had learned from their ancestors. I was surprised in reading the book how many similar practices are honored in widely varying cultures and countries. But it wasn’t until my friend quizzed me that I was taken aback.

“What do you enjoy about gardening?” she asked. “What draws you to it?”

I must have had a dumfounded look upon my face as I struggled for an answer. Seconds passed and time seemed to stand still as I formed what I hoped would be a rational, well-thought out answer. And then I started to ramble on and on as reason after reason poured off my tongue.

I started at the beginning when I learned to pull weeds in my mother’s small rock garden back in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She didn’t have much of an area for a garden; most of the yard was given over to play areas for my brother and me, and the rest to a picnic table and charcoal grill. There were a few tomatoes tucked in sunny spots here and there and rhubarb in the corner, but not much else in the way of vegetables.

But my aunt had a fabulous vegetable garden at her rural farmette in the southwestern part of the state, almost on the West Virginia border. It was on our week-long trips to Aunt Marguerite’s that I learned to love yellow wax beans, snap peas, lettuce, spinach, peppers, zucchini, pumpkins and corn. Half her garden was planted in corn... lovely, long, straight rows of it, tall and stately. The corn field was not only a great place to play hide and-seek, but it was also a feast for the senses: the sound of the soft - yet crisp - rustling of the stalks in the slightest of breezes, the smell of the sweet starchiness of the kernels, the golden colors of the ears. When I was sent to pick a dozen ears for our dinner, I loved fingering the soft silk as I cleaned the ears for cooking. And the entire garden was surrounded by sunflowers. I could sit on the porch in the heat of the day and watch those heavy heads full of seeds turning toward the sun as it moved across the sky.

Aunt Marguerite’s tomatoes were nothing like the ones we had in our garden. My mother liked to grow the smaller ‘Early Girl’ tomatoes, but Marguerite grew ones with big names that matched the big fruit: ‘Big Boy’ and ‘Beefsteak.’ As I matured, I realized that I preferred the richer flavor of ‘Early Girl’ and the bigger tomatoes seemed less tasty to my more “refined palate.” But as a child, I loved the sight of those ‘Big Boy’ plants loaded down with heavy red tomatoes.

As the day cooled, my mother would often come and work in Marguerite’s garden with me. It was her chance to enjoy real vegetable gardening, I think. I know my cousins grew up on the fresh fruits and vegetables harvested from that massive garden, but we were considered the lucky ones because we could buy our food in the grocery store and not have to work so hard for it. Funny how times have changed.

When I married and we bought our first home, there was room for a small garden, and the first thing we planted was ‘Early Girl’ tomatoes. We also put in a few peppers, some lettuce, bush beans, wax beans and corn. But the size of the garden wasn’t large enough to support even our small family, nor did we intend it to be. Again, we needed space for a play area and a place to cook out and eat out (still one of my favorite things to do). And my interest turned to the beauty of perennial plants and rose bushes.

Moving to Tillamook County in 2001, the vegetable garden area shrunk even more because of our proximity to the bay and the cold north winds we get in the summer. But that was fine with me. My days of spending hours bent over weeding a large vegetable garden were past, and I have moved to planting intensively so to crowds out most of the weeds. Now my main struggle is with slugs.

But in times of reminiscing, I remember with fondness those hot, summer days in Aunt Marguerite’s garden, accompanied by her collie and Irish setter. Not one for the heat and humidity, I am happier in Oregon than I have even been. But I wonder if it is really a coincidence “Marguerite” is Spanish for Daisy, the name of our granddaughter. I also wonder if our Daisy will grow to love gardening as much as I do.

Did I answer the question?

(What draws you to garden? I would love to know. Email me your answers for a future column.)