The Annual Pursuit of Gardening Greatness

Few people, including those who live with me, know that I am actually a master gardener. Granted, it is only for about three months of each year. But during those months I am nothing short of spectacular.

In December I begin thinking about seed purchases and ponder possible improvements over the previous season’s gardens. January finds me in the throws of meticulous planning. I consider rotations, plant placement within rotational beds, locations of new gardens, made-from-scratch drip irrigation systems, compost piles to be built, and take inventory of material needed to build a couple of late winter cold frames.

February preparations increase dramatically. Seeds on hand are inventoried and a shopping list created. I pull out seed trays and prepare them for March’s plantings. The seed catalogs that have finally arrived are studied and price comparisons computed. Job lists are made according to priority and placed in chronological order. Materials for new trellises are found and positioned for use.

Every year I plan to have my seed trays completed by the third week of March. They are to be placed in our home on shelves sitting in front of southern facing windows. Yet every year, usually by the second week of March, I am frustrated and disappointed. It is seemingly inevitable that each year’s Ides of March are destined to bring my delusions of grandeur down into the pit of reality.

Why can I never rise above life’s obstacles and stay on the garden track? Be it a bathroom drain that suddenly needs replacing or heater in the milkhouse that needs repair, life’s unexpected curve balls have derailed my well-intentioned plans every single year.

The remainder of my garden year also plays out the same as previous years. My seed trays won’t be touched until early April. Some years I surrender completely and just sow directly into the ground. In April I will begin clearing the garden of last year’s weeds, plantings, discarded tools, and trellises. Each of these tasks should have been completed in March.

Early crops (Broccoli and Greens families) should have been planted in April but won’t make it into the ground until after May Day. The second week of May should find me transplanting tomato and other late spring seedlings. They won’t find their way home until the end of the month.

The seemingly endless disappointments continue throughout the growing season. I forget to water. I avoid weeding. Weeds overtake what had been neat, well-tended rows. Some crops (potatoes and onions last year) disappear all together. The failures culminate in November when once again I fail to get garlic in the ground for the following year’s growing season.

Early on, usually some time in April, I begin conversing and reasoning with myself. “I really was set on putting in about ten rows of corn this year. Guess I’ll settle for two. Those rows of new veggies will have to wait until next year. Wonder if I can return the seeds? Potato beds? Forget it. Besides, spuds are really cheap at the grocery store. But they’re not organic. So what? One more year of non-organic russets won’t make that big of a deal.”

Soon I find myself arguing with, err, myself. “You really suck as a gardener. No I don’t. I am just overloaded with responsibilities. That’s a crock. Master gardener? You’re just a master procrastinator. That’s not true. I’d like to see other people try to handle all the stuff I have to handle. You are constantly writing checks that your body can’t cash. Oh yeah? Well you couldn’t find the positive side of a free lunch. Really? I think you’re just a self-absorbed whiner who never intends to get anything of value done and then points the finger of blame at everything but yourself. You bastard! Who are you to judge me? If I listened to you I’d never accomplish anything because you write failure on it before the first step is taken. Well that’s only because every step you take is destined to land in one big heaping, steaming pile of fetid failure.”

Then it gets really ugly and I refuse to speak to myself for a week or two.

Over the last few years my wife, Lisa, has taken pity on me. Either that or she has become so frustrated with my garden that isn’t that she takes it upon herself to put in her own garden. I’m not sure which motivation moves her to action, but in the end she somehow ends up with something that actually produces vegetables.

Lisa does gardening all wrong. I can’t point that out of course, but deep down we both know it. She sometimes plants seeds and genuinely doesn’t care if they come up or not. If they do, she rejoices. If not, c'est la vie. This attitude completely befuddles me, though I must grudgingly admit that I frequently admire her for it.

She never has a “big picture” plan for crop rotation. Wide beds are never considered. Seeds are scattered haphazardly on the ground. Some make it in, some don’t. She even uses our children to assist in planting (I have to find other things to do on the far side of the farm when this happens). But the truth remains that the beautiful, bountiful gardens of my mind remain securely locked in there somewhere. Lisa’s gardens somehow produce despite their obvious flaws and awkward management. How this can be I do not know nor understand. But they do and come harvest time I will be quite grateful for it.

I planned to have most of my seed trays done this week. They remain vacant in the garage as they do each year at this time. Lisa? She has little onion stems just beginning to sprout from the seeds she planted last week. This fall I will enjoy their sweet flavor on a hamburger made from beef that was raised on our own little farm. At that time I will be grateful, pleased and satisfied. Right now they are bitter reminders of my failures in agronomy and bring home the painful realization that my annual stint as a master gardener is over for another nine months.