My dear friend, seven years younger, is moving to a condominium. There is a small green space outside the kitchen that reminds her of her home in New York.
A very small green space.
I wonder how she can give up her backyard with a garden, because this morning, I am writing on the deck while eating a bowl of oatmeal with fresh raspberries from my garden and honey from last year's beehives. How could I ever give that up?
Scattered throughout the grow boxes are at least ten tomato plants and in late August, we will start making salsa and will live off that salsa for the next month. Tortilla chips are not the healthiest of foods but the abundant consumption of fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions, more than compensates for the chips.
A watermelon plant climbs a tomato cage. In the next box over is a pumpkin vine. An almond tree. A gregarious grape vine that creeps its way up and around a pergola like veins running through a body. Two peach trees. A nectarine tree. Black raspberries. Two pepper plants, and a few volunteer vines that will be a surprise when they finally bear fruit.
My garden.
My therapy.
At the pinnacle of frustration, I hop in the car and drive to Cook's Greenhouse. The spring rush is done, when a parking place is few and far between. Today I pull up next to the pallets of peat moss, Nutri-mulch, and mushroom compost. A young man in his signature green t-shirt walks by and asks if he can help me. I ask for peat moss; he suggests a combination of mulch and compost.
"This is what I use in my garden and it is lush."
I took him for just an employee, but he whips out his phone and shows me a photo of his flower-profuse garden along with tall corn and squash plants interspersed here and there.
"Great, I'll take three bags each." He loads my car while I walk inside to pay. I decide on four bags each, and later this week I am sure I will return for more.
Because when we nurture a garden, improvement is instantly visible. It's like a haircut.
I rake out the raspberry patch and pull raspberry brambles through unused tomato cages. I lovingly dig in the mulch and compost. I cut back the rosemary bush and dig about until the dirt smooths out. Order begins to prevail. The ripening berries are proudly displayed instead of hiding underneath leaves visible only to roly- poly bugs and other pests.
Order to my garden has brought order to my mind. The earlier frustration evaporates. In nurturing the soil, I nurture my soul through a difficult situation.
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