Whether plot or pot, make it your own

I love to hear my father tell this story: “Are you watching Penny?…” He was, moving me along the garden rows at a farm in Michigan. I imagine this was my beginning, where my passion and love for gardening began when I was just a baby. My parents are wonderful teachers of the natural world and all it provides if we treat it with respect and work hard. In semi-retirement they live and thrive on Cape Cod where my Dad is now a Master Gardener and my mom sits on the board at their local library. They are the dynamic duo of gardeners. My father, the dreamer and worker bee, my mom the collector of his labor which she turns into the most delicious meals and cans, jellys, pickles, stews, roasts and freezes the fruits and vegetables my father grows in abundance. And if you are lucky enough to call them family, friend, or even just acquaintance, they share their bountiful harvest with you.

I worked toward my own garden slowly, moving frequently in my younger years and often settling for house plants or potted herbs. Some years later, married, with our own family, my husband and I were fortunate to own an acre of land and we worked diligently in our amazing gardens. There, “green became tomatoes” and our children relished the enormity of sunflowers sprouted from striped seeds. Our gardens were a salvation to me as I lived the busy days of fulltime motherhood with four growing up children. They were a source of pride and plots filled with educations tools. The home-grown fruits, vegetables, and flowers filled us with happiness and nurtured our children’s endless curiosity and sense of wonder.

I grew up composting and welcomed the chance to share this important practice with our children. We had little garbage and plenty of good “black gold” as my Dad and their Pop wisely calls “finished” compost. Our oldest son was at a good age to help his Dad build raised beds, our daughters loved to find “workers” or worms to add to the compost, our younger son often harvested cherry tomatoes with a lacrosse stick. We had a raspberry patch and our own Pumpkinseed Hill. The happy memories are endless.

The past few years have brought many trials and difficult moves. I have settled for pots again and yearn for a garden once more. Visits and vacations to Cape Cod provide the opportunity for me to garden with my Dad. I take long walks through public parks and soak in the surrounding beauty. I marvel at the amazing gardens of NYC which demonstrate such creative use of space. They invite a step inside and are havens in busyness. “Like one big coffee can” dirt already included.

In City Green, Miss Rosa and Marcy plant a new “crop” in coffee cans kept outside their windowsills. Every spring they buy two packets of seeds and “go to the park, scoop some dirt, and fill the cans up halfway”. That is their planting routine until Old Man Hammer points out that “‘This good for nothin’ lot has plenty of dirt right here.’” Thus, the seed is planted by “Old Man Hammer, hard as nails”, for a community garden to replace that “piece of junk land” and fill in the spot that is like “a big smile with one tooth missing”.

Marcy, an intelligent, observant, and giving child tries to include Old Man Hammer while many neighbors sign a petition to lease the city lot. Their plans are approved and the hard work of cleaning up the vacant lot begins. Neighbors pass by the core group working and stop to give some time. The city provides tools and a dumpster for trash. Wood for a fence is donated by one neighbor and bright yellow paint by another. The “excitement” grows and “everyone has an idea about what to plant — strawberries, carrots, lettuce, and more. Tulips and daisies, petunias, and more!”

After a long day of cleaning up a tired Marcy looks out her window and discovers that Old Man Hammer has some secret plans of his own: “By the streetlights, I see Old Man Hammer come down his steps to open the gate and walk to the back of this lot. He bends down quick, sprinkling something from his pocket and covering it up with dirt.” Marcy takes extra care with this secret space and “pats the soil for good luck and makes a little fence to keep the seeds safe.” Later, when his seeds have sprouted Old Man Hammer says, “‘Marcy, child…This lot was good for nothin’. Now it’s nothin’ but good.’” Deep in summertime, when the garden bursts into bloom, only Marcy and Old Man Hammer know who planted the beautiful patch of sunflowers. Being part of the community garden has enabled Old Man Hammer to engage once again with his neighbors.

Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman: “Thirteen very different voices — old, young, Haitian, Hispanic, tough, haunted, and hopeful — tell one amazing story about a garden that transforms a neighborhood.”

Kim is the first character to break through the dirt in the vacant lot on Gibb Street and like Old Man Hammer her actions are unknowingly watched. Kim heads out to plant on a Sunday, “early in April. An icy wind teetered trash cans and turned my cheeks to marble. Here in Cleveland people call it spring.” Kim digs her six small holes “hidden from view behind a rusty old refrigerator”, but Ana who “has seen history out this window” is watching the activity in the vacant lot. It is too cold for Kim’s lima beans to take root, but stubbornly they do as the sun reflects off the refrigerator and provides heat and protection. They survive even Ana’s noisiness and detective work, “I hacked and dug, but didn’t find anything except for a large white bean.” Ana has made her way down to the vacant lot, suspicious that Kim might be “burying drugs most likely, or money, or a gun.” Instead, “the truth of it slapped me full in the face. I said to myself, ‘What have you done?’ Two beans had roots. I knew I’d done them harm. I felt like I’d read through her secret diary and ripped out a page without meaning to…” And if Kim’s seeds could talk, they would reveal that their planting was a tribute to her dead father, a farmer in his former life in Vietnam.

Ana makes amends not directly with Kim, but by sending Wendell to rescue her plants. Four days have passed and Kim has not watered or tended to her beans. Wendell studies the situation, marveling at how Kim’s beans have sprouted against the odds. He aides the seedlings by “scraping up a ring of dirt around the first plant, to hold water and any rain that fell.” When Wendell returns to the lot later, he sees that Kim has followed his example for all her plants. No words were spoken between them, but Wendell has been profoundly changed by the promise of growing something: “a patch of ground in this trashy lot — I can change.” Wendell cannot bring back his son:” shot dead like a dog in the street”, or his wife who died in a car wreck, but as for a small garden: “I walked around and picked myself out a plot…”

When Leona recognizes that the vacant lot is misnamed some real movement comes to Gibb Street: “Don’t know why anyone called that lot ‘vacant’. The garbage was piled high as your waist…the smell’s enough to curl a crocodile’s nose, especially in the summer.” Leona observes how three gardeners had cleared small plots and thinks: “I knew precious few would join ’em until that mess was hauled away. Looking at it, I knew this wasn’t a job for no wheelbarrow. This was a job for the telephone.” After three days of phone calls and no progress, Leona takes a trip to the Public Health Department along with a bag of garbage from the lot. The smell gets things moving and soon there is action. Sam observes: “Men in jumpsuits, from the jail I think, were clearing the lot. Unbelievable. The woman beside me told me the land was for anyone who wanted a garden. Even more unbelievable. The word ‘paradise’ came out of my mouth without thinking. The woman looked at me strange… ‘Paradise’ comes from a Persian word. It means ‘walled park’. I told the woman that. This time she gave me a little smile. I smiled back. That’s my occupation.” Leona has used her ingenuity to get the bulk of the garbage cleared and now Sam uses his art of coversation to figure out how to get the gardeners to work together as they need a water source.

The garden in most immediate need of water belongs to Virgil and his father (a cab driver who has developed a get rich from growing baby lettuce plan). Virgil, who is “done with fifth grade forever” and plans to sleep in celebration is woken early by his father and his earnest plans “School was over, but that garden was just beginning… He was always asking people in his cab about how to get rich. One of ’em told him fancy restaurants paid lots of money for this baby lettuce… the fresher it was the higher the price. My father planned to pick it and then race it right over in his cab. Running red lights if he had to.” However, Virgil’s dad does not account for the actual work of growing the lettuce, that part of the plan gets left with Virgil: “That lettuce was like having a new baby in family. And I was like its mother… The minute it came up, it started to wilt. It was like a baby always crying for its milk.”

Virgil’s lettuce needs a mother and it turns out that Lateesha’s Tomatoes need the constant tending of Curtis in addition to a babysitter or perhaps more of a night guard. Virgil’s dad is hoping to get rich quick and Curtis is hoping to win back the heart of Lateesha who “had a serious thing for tomatoes. She’d put a monster slice on a piece of bread and call it a sandwich. She’d even bit into ’em, just like apples… I planted ’em right there in front of her eyes to show her…that I was waiting for her… I started coming straight from work to check ’em. I noticed every hole in every leaf. I picked off bugs, pulled out weeds, and gave them lots of that fertilizer called Tomato Food… From little green marbles those tomatoes started growing. Then they started getting orange. Then they went to red.” Red tomatoes, huge tomatoes, close to the sidewalk tomatoes, tempting for passersby tomatoes. “I couldn’t guard ’em day and night. Then Royce showed up, just in time.” The garden is providing shelter for Royce as he hides from his abusive father and it is Curtis who discovers Royce one morning when he “oversleeps” in the garden: “I found him a place closer to my tomatoes but hidden by somebody’s corn, so the cops wouldn’t see him sacked out. I bought him a brand new sleeping bag. I gave him money for food that week… His part of the deal was that if he saw or heard anyone mess with my tomatoes, he’d come at ’em full speed, holding the pitchfork.” Royce has some temporary safety and a purpose and Lateesha’s Tomatoes have a personal night guard.

It is the love and tending for the plants themselves that unites the gardeners of Gibb Street. Though they are vastly different in ages, stages of life, and ethnicities and “Pantomime was often required to get over language barriers. Yet (they) were all subject to the same weather and pests, the same neighborhood, and the same parental emotions toward (their)plants.” The seedfolks of the Gibb Street Garden make it through the first year — from six lima beans that survive simply by accidental placement to a flourishing garden with crops to share and a harvest worth noting: “Watermelons from the garden were sliced open. The gardeners proudly showed off what they had grown. We traded harvests, as we often did. And we gave food away as we often did also…”

The majority of the gardening in The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman happens in a vacant lot in the Los Angeles Botanical Gardens. Here the reader meets Lilian Girvan, widowed, but married (“ ‘When I have to fill out a form…I check married, but write in widowed… Why isn’t that box there anyway?’ ”). Lilian is mother to Annabel and Clare, sister to the mistaken celebrity, Rachel Anderby, and by profession, an illustrator. A new assignment from Lilian’s general manager lands her in the garden for six weeks on Saturday mornings with a cast of characters perhaps as remarkably different as the gardeners of Gibb Street. A major difference in comparison between the two settings is the lot these CA gardeners are about to tackle is actually vacant. In addition, they have a teacher: Edward Bloem, a professor of gardening, a master gardener with an international reputation, and a leading authority on humus (decomposed matter). So the chapter, First Class, is not only the actual beginning to a hands on Gardening 101, but also decidedly more upscale than Gibb Street.

The motivating factors that bring the cast of characters to this created botanical garden are no less ardent than those of the seedfolks or Marcy and Old Man Hammer. Abbi Waxman has wisely layered her character development(s) with first impressions, biases, and misinterpretations. For Lilian gardening provides a much needed outlet for her grief. An outlet completely different from her formal therapy sessions in addition to the informal ones she shares with her sister Rachel: “I suddenly realized that all my senses were getting more of a workout than normal, and maybe that explained why my brain wasn’t buzzing with its usual self critical commentary. I was getting input from my hands, my eyes… and my nose. I wondered why this was so relaxing when it was also so physically active. There was probably some metaphorical lesson to be drawn from it, but I was damned if I was going to hunt for it. For the first time in years I was going to stop thinking and just dig in the dirt.” And as the practical Clare announces to the class, her mom “doesn’t have anyone to play with since Daddy died”.

Lilian’s husband was killed in a car accident just outside the door of their home. She had to be institutionalized for three months following the accident. In order to return to motherhood and continue to support Annabel and Claire, Lilian has learned to protect her emotions and often resorts to humor to cope with daily life. Rachel, the younger sister and enormously cool Aunt, contributes to this daily dose of humor for coping. In addition, Rachel is always on a date, moving from one hot guy to the next. So while Lilian is a young widow, Rachel is her polar opposite, doing her best to never get serious in a relationship.

The class list beginning with Lilian, Rachel, Annabel, and Claire and taught with quiet brilliance by the attractive Edward, also includes the Lesbian teachers, Eloise and Frances, the apartment dweller Angie in need of an actual garden, not just lessons, the retired banker Gene whose wife wants him to engage in a new hobby, and Mike, the young skateboarder, snowboarder, surfer, biker, band member… who is looking for something slow and mellow. While Mike might appear like a stereotypical dude, we later discover that he has a degree from MIT. And while Lilian initially pegs Angie as a “well-spoken ninja neck-snapper” the gardening experiences reveal her softer side and her suppressed dreams to provide a better life for, Bash (Sebastian), her 5-year-old son.

Abbi Waxman’s delightful novel is also scattered with gardening advice focusing on success for a single crop. These small introductions to new chapters are presented as lists of gardening instructions, but read carefully because just as her novel provides meaningful life lessons hidden in realistic and mundane rhythms of everyday activities (written with spot-on dialogue), there are also hidden gems in the gardening lists. For example, regarding How To Grow Broccoli, “Try and keep the soil moist. Broccoli needs to be kept moist. However, do not get developing heads wet when watering. They will come to life and terrorize the neighborhood. That’s not true, but they won’t like it.” The mixing of humor with instruction serves as a model for the greater impact of this novel. The interweaving of Waxman’s characters as they learn to garden and dig in the dirt together provides the backdrop for the greater message, the healing power gained from small beginnings.

A Packet of Seeds by Deborah Hopkinson continues to support the healing power of gardens. When life on the prairie overwhelms a new mother, it is the planting of a kitchen garden that helps her accept her new circumstances. The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin illustrates the development of understanding and respect in a young girl for her Chinese Heritage. I Saw It in the Garden by Martin Brennan cleverly combines practical elements of gardening with a realistic timeline of the patience and hard work needed for a successful garden. And for the very young and also young at heart, dream big like Bunny, but remember to work hard like Bear, as in Bear and Bunny Grow Tomatoes by Bruce Koscielniak. And if you do, “green will become tomatoes” for you!

Quotations in this post are from primary sources listed and pictured.

This post is dedicated to my wonderful parents and all the Sandwich Community Gardeners who need new garden homes.