If you’ve been following me on Twitter at all, you know I’ve been posting a lot about gardening. The funny thing about it is that I can’t pinpoint exactly when I became so interested. I just kind of woke up one morning last year and said, “Well, I gotta water the plants.”
My fellow local dads have been gardening for at least a few years. Some more than others, but they all have advice that could fill a silo for the budding plant-tender. And while that can be overwhelming at first, it is also comforting that there is almost no “bad” way to garden aside from simply killing your plants. You make it up as you go! You figure out what works for you. Do you compost? Do you use fertilizer? What type? Organic or synthetic? Do you use worm casings too or bone meal? Blood meal will burn the roots if too much is applied. Watch out for pests! To fence or not fence? It goes on and on.
Last year, I was already planning on gardening, I actually started with some sugar snap peas, which were fine. It was after I experienced garden-grown tomatoes that things changed. A friend gave me some of the richest tasting cherry tomatoes1 I have ever had. I don’t even like the things, but these were the closest thing to candy a vegetable2 has ever gotten for me.
This desire also turned into a desire for cucumbers and by extension pickles, because processing your bounty from the garden is the fun back half of this whole endeavor, at least it is for me.
When it was all said and done, I grew twelve plants: 8 tomatoes of various varieties (slicer, paste, and cherry) & 4 cucumber plants (slicer & pickler). The thing that changed is my intention behind gardening also changed as the summer grew closer and entered full swing.
The reality was that my son died on June 3rd, 2021. Francis Benedict passed away from extenuating conditions as a result of his trisomy 18.
He was a brilliant boy. A strong boy. A beloved boy.
As I continued to garden through the summer, it became Francis’ Garden, not mine. I was simply the steward. I was taking care of his plot, the small plot behind our house we’re renting—echoing his own small plot a mile down the road at the cemetery.
Frankie was never outside. He never got to feel the sun on his skin or the wind ruffle his amusingly cute mullet. Despite, all of that I feel close to him when I’m out there. Knuckle deep in the dirt with gloves on or off, is a wonderfully tactile experience. In fact, I’m writing this now with dirt still under my fingernails from today’s work.
It’s all the little movements of things that I enjoy. Moving compost as it bounces in the wheelbarrow to be dumped on raised beds, spilling into the slightly overgrown grass that can’t be cut easily now. Brushing the leaves of the tomato seedlings and catching the tang of the fresh green. Gently pulling a couple of seedlings apart and watching as the roots unravel from one another as if they were knitting a blanket through the dirt.
All of it has made me appreciate the outside more than I ever have in my life. I am a transplant from the coast. I grew up a block from the beach in VA. The ocean for the longest time was my only sanctuary and it still is, but I haven’t been to one in—almost six years. I’ve had to make a new one here and Frankie has helped me see that.
If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I have some small sensory issues, mostly touch. I don’t like lotion or “sticky” surfaces. I certainly don’t like more unpleasant substances either, but as the Dad, I’m the vomit czar after all. I don’t have these hangups with soil or compost though. Even wet soil, coating my fingers with its grainy and clayish3 makeup doesn’t phase me. I like running my hands over the compost, getting close to its smelly, but fresh scent. The idea of an entire biome existing there and what will eventually feed my plants, which in turn feed me is—incredible.
The full circle of all of that is something I’ve come to appreciate. I love the time I spend in my garden and the work I put into my plants, even if I do grow tired watering them. My wife actually called herself a “garden widow” last year, because I would disappear from the house and she’d find me sniffing the tomatoes and pruning.
I do think everyone should keep some sort of food garden. Doesn’t have to be large, just a pot or two. It has to be enough to actually add something to your meals because it does give you a whole new outlook on what it means to appreciate something. We don’t take good care of our things. I don’t want to go off on a bender about throwaway culture or capitalism’s plastic facade, but there is a strong sense of completion4.
I am not a homesteader, but I do daydream of having a farmette. I’m not a crunchy nature lover, although I do consider myself an environmentalist (small e here). These are some of my values and passions that have become embodied and put into praxis through gardening, but it doesn’t say everything.
When I was growing my first seedlings this year, I had a hard time thinning them. In fact, I couldn’t. I kept them all and ran out of room for more. It took me about a month to face the reality that I couldn’t save every seed I grew and not all seeds are strong. Yet, these little lives are so precious.
Francis was a seed that was both weak and strong. We really didn’t think we’d get to hold his breathing body, but he cried when he was pulled out. His body shook as he gasped for air. His lungs racked in pain because there was just never enough oxygen. He fought and fought for only 24 hours.
I see him in my seedlings that struggle toward the lights. I see him in the plants that wilt from having too little water but come back after the smallest of drinks. I wish I didn’t have to see mere reminders of my boy, but it’s the only way I can truly relate to him now. His grave is a plain green patch for now. His mother and I want to grow flowers there eventually when we are ready. Growing things is a hard and complicated process5, but there isn’t a right way to do it. You simply just have to start getting your hands dirty.
Oh, and if anyone is keeping count at home, the garden has significantly grown this year. I’m planning as of this writing (none of these counts are exact): A few tomatillos, 14ish tomato plants, various herbs for companion planting, 20ish peppers of an assorted bell, spicy & sweet, 20ish cucumbers of slicing and pickling variety, and finally a selection of greens, which are already in the ground.
If any of you are local this summer, please reach out! I’ll give you some produce.
Postscript - I can’t simply talk about all of this gardening without passing along some books that I’ve found helpful.
Check out this weedless gardening reference, it’s a gold mine of good advice. I can’t follow through on all of it, but I’m a big believer in it. And I would be remiss to not include Michael Pollan’s Second Nature, which is a rambling reflection on gardening and the impact it has had on his life. And for fun, Epic Tomatoes is a wonderful homage to one of my favorite crops.
Johnny’s Selected Seeds has been my one-stop shop so far. I know there are others, but I haven’t tried them yet! Johnny’s is also 100% employee-owned, so that’s a +10. I’m not sponsored by them, I swear! (Johnny’s if you read this, let’s talk.)
Yeah, yeah-I know tomatoes aren’t *exactly* vegetables-sue me.
Where we live used to be a marsh a couple of hundred years ago, so it also has a large level of clay.
This is really just the best word that comes to mind, maybe I’ll think of another one and replace it. I’m trying to get at the sense of “control” or “ownership” or “nurturing” but it is really a combo of all three.
I realize I’ve left out a lot of the struggles and hardships of gardening, but fear not! There are PLENTY and I will of course talk about them as the season goes along.