Green Thumb : Passing On the Essence of Gardening and Life

My grandfather taught me to garden, but it’s safe to say that my grandfather never had a green thumb.

I was a little guy when my mother’s parents came to live in our town. Her father, in his old age, took to doing chores around our yard. I can remember my mother nervously watching from inside the house on days when he’d decided to “trim the bushes.” It was the horticultural equivalent of Shermans’ march to the sea. He’d take the large clippers and go to work devastating what might otherwise have become springtime blooms.

But it made the old man happy to be helping out. And it made my mother happy to have him do it.

My job was to carry his shovel. I’d follow the old man around the yard, from front to back and side yard to side yard, listening to his stories of growing potatoes in his native Ireland, and watching swirls of white smoke curl up from his pipe.

He’d tell me how life had been in Ireland, and I’d swallow every tidbit. I was 14 or 15 before I found out the cows in Ireland don’t really turn over on their backs in the winter with their feet up in the air and turn blue when the snow covers them up.

I’d carry that shovel with an unmatchable pride that I was helping my grandfather in such important work. Some days he might not even use it; but that never mattered to me. At the times he did use it I’d watch his big black shoe push the blade down into the soil, I’d watch him take an extra puff or two on his pipe, and somehow the essence of the world was right there in that shoveling of dirt.

For years I followed one step behind my grandfather, and as a result I unconsciously picked up in my walking pace his slight limp.

In April we used to plant potatoes. Potatoes take about three months to harvest and so they required great patience. When my grandfather said it was time to dig them up, we usually got about enough for one meal. They were always small, cute and delicious. Someone would usually comment about how it would make more sense to buy potatoes. My grandfather would usually state the obvious: “You can’t buy potatoes like these in any store!”

In June we put in the tomatoes. We’d buy maybe a dozen beefsteak plants and a couple of cherry tomato plants. As a child the cherry tomatoes were the most fun since so many ripened so often there was always the excitement of finding newly ripened fruit to pick. There was the joy of discovery.

The beefsteaks seemed, in comparison, so slow in coming. Half the time birds seemed to get the better of the beefsteaks, anyway. Besides, the truth was that as a kid I didn’t even like the taste of tomatoes. But it sure was fun growing them.

Something was born in me in those years, and I have always had a garden of my own. I have, over the years, experimented with various flowers and vegetables, but I have always planted tomatoes and potatoes.

I’ve noticed a trend in new housing toward low-maintenance landscaping. The small gardens, although often well-organized and neat-looking, strike me as being impersonal and passionless. Most folks, it seems to me, would rather not be bothered with the effort of planting and maintaining a garden. Perhaps they would explain that they just don’t have the time. Too bad. They miss the magic of the gardening experience.

My grandfather and I planted potatoes for our winter garden. That’s all we would plant until spring. I have expanded upon that a little. Each fall I plant spinach, lettuce, radishes and carrots. In February I try various kinds of peppers. Still, this is a modest endeavor, I think. Friends of mine with no larger plots grow rhubarb and rutabagas, turnips, Chinese vegetables and things from the cabbage family.

I have given up on anything difficult to grow. I have grown cabbages and Brussels sprouts only to have them eaten by pests. My cauliflower met the same fate as the cabbage. I figure that I already consume enough insecticide from store-bought fruit and vegetables, and I don’t have any desire to add insecticide from home-grown produce to my diet.

Some people just don’t understand my style of gardening. I grow one type of pepper that is too hot even for most people who like spicy food. I have to admit that the one man who used to appreciate my hot pepper and use them in his cooking died a few years ago. I don’t think that there was any direct correlation between that tragic event and my peppers, however.

From time to time I am asked why I grow them if I don’t use them. Well, I like to watch them grow.

You see, the essence of gardening has little to do with what you plant, or the tools used to dig, or the quality of the soil. Somehow the gardening experience has something to do with the essence of life itself.

In every seed or seedling is the same growth potential, given enough nurturing, as resides in an individual, a family, a nation. Yes, it takes effort and time to produce. It takes patience. But the results, great or small, absolutely cannot be bought in any store.

My grandfather taught me that, although it’s safe to say he never had a green thumb.