Good Earth

Our first tomato is turning from green to orange on its way to red. The site gives me a thrill. It came on unexpectedly. One night green, the next morning the transition is underway. It's August 11th.

I meant to keep a journal of our backyard. Candace and I transformed it into something of our own. Watching its progress is a daily engagement. I feel the desire to know what we planted and when. I want to quantify the rich fruits of our labor, to count tomatoes and beans and peppers.

We decided on an early June Saturday to till a piece of earth on a whim. It is something we had thought about often but hadn't acted upon. Why go through the work when I felt with certainty we would move from this place? I also wondered if a garden would get enough light sandwiched between our house and the towering pines.

Our friend Clay gave us the ok to grab his tiller. Later that day we added peat moss and fertilizer and compost and bags of rich, black top soil. We tossed away clumps of mulched tilled grass and picked out stubborn roots from the pines.

Candace marked off perfect rows with several wooden posts at each end while stretching pieces of taught twine in between. She did much of the planting. There are thirteen tomatoes of various origins, green peppers, hot peppers, peas, beans, cucumbers, onions (red and white), radishes and lettuce.

I cherish the architecture of vines and leaves. It is exhilarating to see beans sprout through the earth as if they were waking after a night of sleep, the way I might raise my fisted hands from my feet to far above my head in a slow single motion. The radishes were quick, but too thick to grow bulbs. Too few of the onions sets caught on. Heartache.

The lettuce is grand and delicious. I venture to guess we have harvested three dozen bowls of the crisp, refreshing leaves and still they sprout. The cucumbers started slowly but began their feisty crawl during the early part of August. If only I knew the day I saw the first fruit.

Candace was the first to snap a pea pod and taste the luxury of its contents. The beans flowered and then came in waves toward the end of July. The yellow petals of promise on the tomatoes showed early and often, and now the plants are staked to tall mahogany wooden posts to help hold the hope-filled weight. The smell of the vines is therapeutic.

I went back in the garden tonight, in the dark with a small light. I lost count of the tomatoes at 130. I know there's at least another score.

There's so much to tell. I want to share with you the climbing vines, the roses, the butterfly bush, and how we want to attract hummingbirds. I want to remember it all, for all time.