I think my garden is dying. Which is no great surprise. I have never been a terrific gardener, and, between us, Gloria and I managed to kill every living plant that anybody ever gave us. The girls gave us a Christmas Rose one year, and that managed to survive for a very impressive three years, but eventually I managed to kill that too.
The garden that I currently have is the remains of one of the five gardens that I had last year. After Gloria died, for some reason I was very emotionally involved in gardening. This was very strange. My baby brother remarked on it, wondering why I was gardening, since Mom had ensured that all of us really hated gardening. He's quite right. I hated gardening possibly more than any of my siblings, since, being eldest, most of the work of resurrecting Mom's neglected gardens, on the random occasions when she felt the need to do so, fell to me.
So, yes, I hated gardening. I'm no good at it. I have no knowledge or skills in this area. So why, in Delta, was I running not one, but *five* different gardens?
There was, of course, the facile answer. Gloria had died, and therefore I wanted to create something alive. I don't know. Maybe this is the case. I'd hate to think that it was a simple as that. And if it was as simple as that, why didn't I just feel that way?
When I asked the grief counselors, one said that gardening was terribly therapeutic. She loves getting her hands into the dirt. No, that is not my type of therapy. I do not like getting my hands dirty. At all. With anything. So no, I do not find grubbing around in the dirt, with my hands, therapeutic.
Most of the rest suggested that I didn't need to understand why I had this deep emotional need to garden, I should just do it! Well, that's all very well for those intuitive, emotional types. But I'm a guy. I primarily grieve in instrumental fashion. We don't go for "just do it if it feels right," and that emotional type stuff. We are cognitive. We need to understand why. I, particularly, need to understand why. So this business of having a deep emotional need to garden, without any understanding as to why, really bugged me.
I did do it. As I say, I managed five gardens. I wasn't particularly successful, in any of them. And, that was in Delta. So, of course, the only one that I could bring along, was my pot garden.
Yes, okay, I know you've all had a good giggle over my pot garden, and the implications of that word. I note that I initially called it the pot garden, because it was all in pots. However, I must admit, that the pots were a gift from my baby brother. And that he obtained hundreds of pots on the occasion when he was not sufficiently careful with who he was renting his house to, and they turned it into a grow op. So, yes, your giggle over the pot garden does have some validity to it.
As I say, my garden is dying. About half of the plants that I brought over with me, when I came to Port Alberni, have already died. The remainder are looking pretty sickly, although that may have something to do with the fact that it was the middle of winter when last I looked at them.
But, I'm gardening again. Well, not quite yet. But I now have a plot in one of the community gardens here in Port Alberni. And that seems to have rekindled the activity of gardening in general.
I was kind of wondering if the gardening had been restricted to Delta. For the ridiculously short period of eight months that I was there, I had five gardens. And then I moved to Port Alberni, and I had no gardens at all. Well, I had the pot garden. Or, at least, the remains of the pot garden. I still have strawberry plants that haven't died, and a couple of pine trees that haven't died.
And, having been out with the trail maintenance crew, I have I have harvested salmonberry plants which we were tearing out along the trails. And at least one of the plants seems to have survived the transplant. At least, well enough to put out one flower.
So, I have a little bit of a result from the pot garden, not all of which has completely died.
At any rate, I've now got a plot. And, actually, a fairly large plot, in the community garden. Which I had applied for shortly after I got here. (Having found that community gardens were almost non-existent in Port Alberni. And having gotten on the waiting list for a plot. And having almost forgotten that I had applied for it.)
But I've got it. And now I have to figure out what to do with it.
I have figured out how to grow tomatoes from seed. It's a fairly labour intensive process. If I want to put tomato plants into the community garden, I'll probably start with tomato plants. When I can find out where to buy them in Port Alberni.
I've been thinking a bit about seed potatoes. So I may try that.
I'm still keen on corn, even I had had a rather disastrous crop when I tried them in Delta. I'll probably try some squash. Not quite sure how well that will work. But it seemed to do well in the Deltassist garden. So I may see how I can do with that. I'm probably going to try broad beans again. Although I'm not quite sure why. They were pretty labour intensive when I grew them in Delta. And I'm probably just trying them because Gloria was so keen on broad beans. Broad beans are great but they're not exactly efficient.
I'll probably try some radishes because I had a lot of success with radishes. I'm not sure I'm really successful with carrots. Although mostly I'm remembering the weirdly mutant carrots I got out of the Sunstone community garden in Delta. I didn't have an awful lot of success with generating carrots in the patio garden.
I think I'll try snow peas again. I did have some success with them.
We'll have to see. And I should probably get started because, yeah, it's already more than halfway through April, and I should be starting some of these if I'm to have any success with them at all. I'd better get moving. It's a good thing that next week I don't have too many activities on the go. Although I definitely need to get some government work done ...
Yesterday was *supposed* to be an easy day, and, along the way, went completely crazy. But I *did* get some seeds into my plot in the community garden. (And turned the long-neglected compost bins. And pulled out a bunch of plastic that people had carelessly dumped into the compost bins. I'm really starting to *hate* plastic ...) And watered in the seeds.
And wondered when I was going to get a chance to get down and water again so that the seeds would actually have a chance to germinate and sprout.
Got a couple of cherry tomato plants, also put one of my strawberry plants into the plot, planted a few broad beans around the corn, sprinkled some bell peppers (may not sprout), two lemon seeds by accident (probably won't sprout), some brussel sprouts (we'll see), and some carrots.
As mentioned, for some reason, having the community garden plot (and the accidental discovery of some larger pots) has rekindled my interest in my pot garden. I have, just now, gone and gotten a load of dirt to augment what's left over in the pots. No, I didn't buy a bag at Walmart, I trundled one of the big pots down to the trail at the end of 16th. I also picked up some moss: I've got it placed around the base of one of the salmonberry bushes, so that the salmonberries will feel a bit more at home.
Okay, I'm still gardening. And I still don't know why I'm gardening.
Just having the community garden plot seems to be making me marginally happier. Okay, I've only had a short time, so the evidence is rather limited. But I am planting seeds, transplanting one of my strawberry plants, and even buying tomato plants. Nothing is growing, just yet, so there is no sense of accomplishment in what I am doing. There have been no results. And there won't be any results for some months, I would imagine. So why is the mere existence of the garden plot making me, even if only slightly, happier?
The closest idea might be that it gives me hope. If it is giving me hope, I am hoping against hope, and even against the evidence. Since, two years ago in Delta, despite having five gardens on the go, I actually produced pretty close to nothing. I got a couple of corn cobs, out of all of the corn seeds that I planted, although I suppose I did occasionally have a bit of a feed of snow peas. I got some radishes: I'm not terrifically fond of radishes. Not that I have anything against them, except for their being sharp and bitter, just they're not my all-time favorite vegetable. About the only thing you can say for them is that they grow easily, and you can eat them raw. I did get a few beets, but beets take an awful lot of preparation. I did get a fair harvest of broad beans, but broad beans take an *awful* lot of preparation. As well as a fairly large compost heap for disposing of the extra bits.
I did get some carrots, although the mutant form of the carrots was a bit off putting. As well as being difficult to deal with.
Last year, with my pot garden remains, the strawberry plants gave me absolutely nothing to eat. They did produce some flowers, and they did actually produce some strawberries. I figure birds got to the berries before I got any.
So, why does the garden give me hope? Why does the hope give me a sense of happiness, even if only a small one? I don't know. I don't know why a garden is therapeutic. I don't like scrabbling around in the dirt and the mud. I don't like having to wait. I get bored easily. I rather doubt that evolution has had enough time to build into us a sense of hope and therapy out of gardening. Yes, it feeds us. But for an awful lot of our history, it has been dull, dirty, slogging work. Why on Earth is it therapeutic?
Since I planted stuff yesterday and Tuesday (and got a couple more tomato plants), but I'm a bit sore today, it's nice that God is doing the watering for me today. And the forecast seems to indicate that it's going to rain for a good bit of the next two weeks.
Okay my dying garden is maybe a little less dead ...
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