What A Tangled Web We Grow

Across the Fence #351

I come from a long line of farmers. My father, grandfathers, great grandfathers, and many generations that reach back to the Viking age in Norway were farmers. From my genealogy research, it appears the vast majority of my ancestors farmed the land. That’s a lot of DNA dirt under my fingernails. Is it any wonder that I feel an irresistible urge to dig in the dirt and try to make things grow?

Times have changed and today there are fewer farmers. I’ve become one of the many offspring who no longer follow the farming tradition that we grew up in. Fortunately, my brother, Arden, has continued the tradition and has the home farm. Chances are, he could be the last Sherpe, in a long, unbroken line, who knows what it’s like to plant and harvest a crop, and milk a cow.

I can’t call myself a farmer, but I’m still planting and harvesting. I have a garden. It helps keep some dirt under my fingernails. It’s not a big garden. Actually, it’s quite small as gardens go, but I still call it a garden. My mother had a huge garden when I was young. The rows were long and straight. She had a wide variety of vegetables and very few weeds in her garden. We got to help her plant and keep the weeds out.

She must be looking at my garden from the Spirit World and shaking her head in pity. My garden isn’t exactly a thing of beauty. Truth be told, it’s down right ugly. On the bright side, it’s such a tangled web of interwoven vines that even the animals and birds can’t find anything to pilfer.

The problem is that it’s a very small garden with way too much stuff, planted too close together. Ma’s garden was so large that Dad used our John Deere B tractor and pulled a disk and drag to prepare the soil for planting. My garden’s not that big.

I like to call myself frugal, but Linda claims I’m cheap. I know I should have rented a rototiller for half a day, but decided I could prepare the ground with a shovel and rake. I also told myself that I could use the exercise. It was a lot of digging and the size of garden I had in my mind, kept getting smaller the longer I dug. I eventually ran out of gas and decided I’d just plant shorter rows and put them closer together. In the end, I should have rented that rototiller, but I was too cheap. Ok, there I said it! I’m cheap.

After beating and raking the big lumps of dirt into little lumps, I planted sugar snap peas, green beans, cucumbers, radishes, onions, tomatoes, beets, and this year decided to try raising some pumpkins too. Not a good idea in a small garden. Those of you who know about gardens probably took note that many of the things I planted have vines that spread out.

My garden has turned into a battlefield as all the clinging, spreading, climbing vines attack each other. It’s become a tangled, green web that would be the envy of any spider. On the positive side again, it’s even strangled the life out of most of the weeds. Although, some very hardy thistles have managed to survive and come back every year, no matter how hard I try beating them into submission.

Despite the pitiful appearance of the garden, it’s actually producing. The problem is to untangle all the clinging vines and leaves in order to find the peas, beans, and cucumbers. When I planted the seeds, I wondered if pumpkins would grow in that area. I can now report that they’re thriving and spreading. If I get a pumpkin for every blossom, I’ll need to set up a stand down by the highway and sell pumpkins this fall. I’ll keep you posted on how they develop.

I didn’t plant any sunflowers this year, but there in the center of all the tangled mess, rising toward the sky, is a sunflower, produced from a fallen seed. It’s always surprising to see what springs forth from those tiny seeds. There’s also a sunflower growing next to the cornfield near our driveway. Probably a seed carried by a bird and dropped there last fall. Now it stands tall and colorful in all its glory. Many seeds we plant in our gardens never germinate under the best of conditions, and yet these wayward seeds took root on their own and produced sunflowers. I’m continually amazed by the life cycle of plants.

I guess that’s what brings out the farmer in all of us who attempt growing gardens filled with plants and vegetables. It’s always fun to watch those small seeds emerge and develop… in my case, into a tangled mess. Even if it’s not a thing of beauty to look at, there’s still something special about producing your own food. Those radish sandwiches taste so much better when you know they grew from seeds you planted and were nourished by some of the dirt under your fingernails.

I can’t break the chain of tradition, practiced by my long line of ancestral farmers. My contribution is only a small plot of land, with a tangled, unsightly, web of vines and veggies, but I still call it “my garden.”