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Erratic Gardening
The drought last year in Texas killed just about everything in my yard except for a couple of holly bushes and the weeds. Some edible weeds of course. Had my first dandelion crop already and the red clover is peaking out. The rest I'm still trying to identify.
My front yard is fairly decent dirt but the side and back yards are that sticky black Texas clay which doesn't like to grow anything but the hardiest of plants. And most seeds don't stand a chance. I bought a nice bunch of organically grown plants to pop in the ground and dang if it didn't rain every day except the one day a family emergency kept me from transplanting. My faithful husband promised to plant them Friday night as I worked from before light to after light Friday, Sat and Sunday. The weather was perfect this weekend. I was so thrilled he would get them in the ground.
This morning I found those poor little dry pathetic plants withering away in a dank corner of my garage. So in the drizzle at 7am this morning I was happily digging holes in my side yard (most of front yard too close to the street) with my 2 yo grandson. I explained to him about transplanting, the tender care the withered almost if not really dead plants would need and how what I was doing wasn't really the way to transplant plants. Of course, his real interest was digging the holes. And I might add I was also planting tulip, crocus, daffodil and allium bulbs that I somehow never got in the ground last fall.
An elderly neighbor came over to watch me for a few moments before speaking. He told me that I was not doing it right. I said "yep". He said it was the wrong time of the year to plant the bulbs. I said "yep". He said I should have rototilled the yard and prepared the soil. I said "yep" and just kept happily digging in the yard, humming to myself. He left and came back with 2 five gallon buckets of the most awesome rich compost I have ever seen. Talk about black gold.....oil didn't have nothing on this stuff. He said his compost soil was the only chance my poor plants would have. I said "yep and thank you". As I was putting the treasure around the plants, another elderly neighbor came up and told me that everything would probably die. I said "mebbe". And then both guys asked me what the point was if the plants were already almost dead, the soil unforgiving and the heavens fixing to poor torrential rain on the plant's tender mercies.
I just smiled thru the dirt on my face, wiped my filthy hands on my jeans and pointed to my grandson who had finally finished his hole and was gently putting his Catnip plant that he personally picked out into that hole, packing the compost about it, kissed the leaves and smiled at me triumphantly before saying "I did mine." The two men looked at him, looked at me and proclaimed that I must be a master gardener because I knew what the true spirit of gardening was.
I would love to have a bumper crop of all my herbs. I would love to prepare my entire yard back, front and sides just right with compost. I would love to have planted all my bulbs when it was just the right time and I sure would love it if my pecan tree would make good pecans while my flowering trees would flower. But I realized this morning, that if none of that happens......ever.......that's okay because I'm passing on the love of growing things, digging in the dirt and pride in caring for plants to a member of a future generation that will care for our earth. And that makes me ecstatic.
Kiri Sue