Gardening Is Fun

I really miss having a house with a yard, because if you add me to a house with a yard I plant a garden. I have lovely memories of days past and Mays past - of the last time I lived in a house and was free to dig up the dirt, which was about 8 years ago. I would wait until it was mid to late May around the time of the full moon for my journey to the farm to buy small plants. Why the full moon? I can't remember the explanation or even who told it to me, but it's one of those things that stuck, like not running with scissors and placing your knives blade first into the dishwasher. My garden always thrived and for that I credit my planting time. Well, not really. There were too many variables but the outcome was always delicious and bountiful, the process always satisfying and therapeutic.


I planted everything I could think of; I brought home every little plant I could find at various area farms. There were big red beefsteak tomatoes, medium sized yellow tomatoes, tiny yellow and red pear-shaped tomatoes, purple eggplant, white eggplant, all manner of herbs, lettuce, and hot peppers, bell peppers, zucchini and yellow squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash (by accident...it was mislabeled, but it was awesome), string beans, snap peas, snow peas, brussel sprouts, radishes, and cucumbers. Most of my plants came from Schartner's Farm in Exeter and some farm in Johnston whose name escapes me...Defazio maybe?

I tried to get some garlic and carrots to grow but those were my only failures. Who knows what I did wrong?



The first garden I planted was in May of 1999, right after I had graduated from college. It was a rare time of self-satisfaction and I had a lot of time on my hands. I remember wandering into the garden early in the morning, clad in my ever-so-fashionable wife beater and boxer shorts with martinis all over them, not to emerge until my then-fiance came home from work and begged me to come inside. My dad, a veteran gardener for as long as I can remember, was very happy that I too was nurturing a fondness for the dirt. He would visit to offer his advice and take me to the farm.


I loved everything about that garden, which I had for 2 seasons. I took so many photos of the different stages of growth. I loved being among my plants, smelling and touching them. I even grew curious of the various insects that took up residence there - strange big worms on my tomato plant that I looked up and found were actually helpful, the lucky praying mantis, the slugs on the lettuce leaves. To me, there was nothing better that kneeling in the dirt in the bright warm afternoon sun to weed my plants or harvest my veggies, and standing in the quiet moonlight with the hose, singing to myself, watering my plants, gazing at the heavens.


A few years ago I tried to grow tomatoes in a pot on the porch of my apartment. It didn't really work well, but I did get to smell the plants and reap a few fruits of my labor. Here's a pic.

















It's so easy to dig up a patch of earth and throw some plants in the ground. They don't ask for much - maybe a little Miracle Grow, some water, and a good thought or two.