To Every Season

We are planning a garden. Planning, you will note, not yet planting. It is far too early here to plant. Without doubt another snowfall will cover the ground. A hard frost will strike just when we think we are safe. I am no farmer, but I have lived here long enough to know. I am not sure if the white shoe rule still applies, but no serious planting should be done at this latitude until Memorial Day.

Alex has begged for a garden since he could speak. Pumpkins, watermelons, apple trees are his vision. He dreams big. I asked him last week what we should plant. "Rutabagas," he answered without hesitation. Rutabagas. They have always fascinated him for reasons I cannot explain. On trips to the grocery store he begs for rutabagas. Not candy or junky cereal. Just rutabagas and an occasional acorn squash. Why? He insists that he just loves them.

But back to the garden. Alex and I have planned a hypothetical garden for many years. We have packs of seeds to prove it. Pumpkins, lemon cucumbers, beans and peas. The boy goes crazy at the Agway seed rack, and it is hard to say no to an earnest face pleading for the hope of nature's bounty. Last year, we made a half-hearted, experimental attempt. Something manageable, I told myself. Something sure to bring success. Into the ground went a few tomato plants, three bean plants and a sprinkling of jalapeno peppers. We planted them adjacent to the abundant chives. I think, unconsciously, I knew, we were doomed. Failure was imminent and those ever present, indestructible chives would ease the pain of defeat just a tiny bit. Chives and lemon balm. Those we can grow. With those we could feed a small nation, if only small nations could be fed on lemon balm and chives... but back to our garden.

If rocky soil did not present challenge enough, than the over population of deer that freely roam and fertilize our back three acres pick up the slack. These deer, while peaceful, beautiful creatures, are voracious. In the height of summer, they leave the acres and acres of lush forest bordering our yard, a bountiful land of foliage and fresh running water, to eat the flowers our of my window boxes. It is an inevitable cycle. Flowers full, just about to burst into bloom. We sleep and arise. They are chomped. Chopped. Gone. A whole forest to forage and these deer choose to dine outside my living room window. But when it came to our tiny garden, I knew how to win. Deer, it seems, hate human hair. According to local legend, if you sprinkle strands of hair about your garden, the deer will leave it undisturbed. Hair, it turns out, is one thing I have in abundance. Never in my life have I gotten my hair cut without the stylist, arms weary from an hour of pulling it straight under the hair dryer, commenting on the thick density of my hair. And it is always falling out. This has plagued Steve for years. He is sickened to see it in his hairbrush, tangled with the socks that come from the laundry, clogging the shower drain. Even Alex asked innocently the other day why a strand of my hair is always on him. "Do you think your head is falling apart, Mommy?" he asked with great seriousness. I ask myself the same thing, many times per day. I am asking myself again as we plan this garden.

It probably goes without saying that hair alone does not keep hungry deer from munching your garden for a snack - jalapenos and all. Our feeble attempt last summer yielded one cherry tomato, one pepper, one green bean and a whole lot of chives. Enough to make salsa for a mouse, I told Alex, who was as thrilled by this harvest as he would have been by an all out windfall. It wasn't just the deer. We weeded about once. We both hate bugs and our early morning efforts were greeted by swarms of annoying little May flies that were happy to suck the tears from our eyes - the tears I cried for the stupidity of planting a garden when I could have just taken a pleasurable journey to the Farmer's Market, delighting in the fruits of someone else's labor while I sipped coffee, listened to a little bluegrass, sampled the latest goat cheese and caught up on the gossip with my neighbor. "Have you tried the olive bread from the Painted Wagon Farm? No. Oh, you have to. Spread a little of Sally's herbed cheese on it and a tomato from the Laughing Dog people. So good." Yes, this is the chatter of the Farmer's Market each Saturday, and I love it. I go home, weighed down with bread and cheese and tomato, allow myself a tiny glass of Chianti, close my eyes, and I am in Tuscany by noon.

This is not the case with the garden. I have read all the books. Those that take place in Tuscany. Those that take place in West Virginia. All exalt the humble backyard garden to a euphoric experience. Sure, there are defeats. The rain does not always come in time to save the century old grape vines. A plague of locust attacks the sweet potatoes. But, no worry. Nature always has more in store and there is still plenty of wine in the cellar from the last 100's years crop of grapes. Good friends will gather without notice and fill in the gaps with the bounty of their own land at a feast that spreads itself out across a table for 50 and lasts deep into the night, under the stars, until the last laugh has been laughed and wine has given way to grappa.

I do not have a green thumb. The books I read are well written. I think the job of literature is to transport you to a different place, to raise you above your own condition, the suspension of disbelief - or is it the suspension of belief? No matter. It works with me. By the end of these stories I devour, all true, I am a gardener, a canner, a preserver. I can feed my family with the bounty of the earth as my famous bread rises, waiting to be baked in the brick oven I have constructed myself, with the help of a weathered guru of a neighbor, at the bottom of my own backyard. I am that woman. My children eat only what I have grown, or purchased locally. I have not seen the inside of a grocery store for 10 months. I have no need. I make my own yogurt and cheese and if I need eggs or a chicken, I just walk down the road and barter with my neighbor.

This is the life I have imagined for myself. My whole family, takes part, of course. Alex prides himself on his rutabagas. Steve perfects his grapes. Cate, too young for much responsibility, delights in plucking slugs from the plants - slugs we lovingly transport from the garden to the woods, ever mindful of all things living.

Alas, my thumb is not green. It is not a shade close to green. I have no idea how to plant a garden, raise it organically, keep the deer, the slugs, the rabbits, and a host of threats I have probably not imagined, from destroying it. I don't have a clue, but I am going to try. Why you may ask? Sponge Bob is the answer.

A few years ago we visited Steve's grandparents at the NJ Shore. It was a great day on the beach. Alex, then just three, discovered the joy and power of the ocean waves for the first time. As he sat, wrapped in a white cover-up, warming himself from the cool water, the ice cream man approached. To Alex's good fortune, his grandmother was there to buy him a treat before his father and I could make up some story about this being a music man, or a guy selling sun screen. They took off together and came back with some cool treats. Alex had chosen Sponge Bob. I don't know why. He isn't allowed to watch Sponge Bob, and if you asked me why, I would have to say that I don't know. I have never seen it, but something inside of me revolts at the site of Sponge Bob. The ice cream, however, did not offend me, at least not initially. It was hot. He was three. We were at the beachenjoying a day with his grandparents. But then it started to melt. Florescent colors ran down his chin and spread across the white jacket. Florescent. These were not colors to be found in nature. I am not sure you could have found them in a box of 64 Crayolas. I stared for a moment and watched a smeary, black gumball - Sponge Bob's eye, fall and create a skid mark of dye across his white covered chest. I didn't take the time to weigh the consequences. Sponge Bob had to go. How I pulled off this feat, I don't recall. Maybe I just took it. Maybe I pretended to tackle Alex, forcing Sponge Bob to fall to his sandy death. I have no idea. I was prepared for the tantrum. It was better than watching those dyes melt all over my little boy's face and mouth. I was truly repulsed. I looked at the list of ingredients on the wrapper and found nothing recognizable. Parents have been up-in arms over toys created with lead paint. I think a child would have to gnaw the head off of a plastic Dora to be at true risk. But, to this day, I am not sure what Sponge Bob was made of... he wasn't ice cream, but he wasn't a popsicle. I planned to write a raging letter to the manufacturer and regret I didn't take that step - especially now, two years later, when I find that same frozen chemical pop on sale at our local farmers museum, here in the heart of dairy-producing upstate NY. I know we can do better. And that is why I am planting the garden.

I don't know if it will be a success. I hope we will at least get a salad or two and maybe a small jack-o-lantern sized pumpkin out of it. But I do know this. I want my children to be aware of their food. I want them to think about where it came from, what it's made of and the effort of man and nature it took to produce it. They will still grow up clamoring for candy and soda. This I know. But I hope, somewhere in the back of their minds, a little voice is still urging them towards the rutabagas.