Discarded Radishes
Thoughts from the garden
Hello friends-
Last week I read a beautiful essay that I sent to a few friends. It focused on the force required for gardening.
“It isn’t easy, gardening. Any force applied to the project of making something grow is met with an array of opposing forces. This, the sensation of force meeting force, is invigorating in its way, or at least edifying. When else do you feel it, the palpable pressure of an ecosystem, the weight of other kinds of life bearing down on your own, the limits of your own will?”
The garden has of late has been a place of respite. In moments of “what can I do?” the answer is: go to the garden. The garden is surrounded by a fence that I didn’t build but am very happy to have. At the very least it keeps the deer from visiting. I see them sometimes in the morning, wandering through other parts of the yard. They leave their mark too, the heads of some of the columbines removed in what I imagine to be one swift bite.
Opening the gate and stepping in feels like closing everything else out. Worries, stress, emotions—they can all patiently wait outside.
I step in, and I put seeds in the ground. I don’t think this is how I am supposed to be gardening, just continually pushing in seeds, forgetting what’s already in the ground. There was a sketch at some point, plans to make a more detailed drawing of what I put in and where. But then I just started going out and forgetting. The approach was chaotic, but the feeling was calming. Pushing a seed into the soil, wondering what would happen to it down the line.
A fence may keep the deer out, but it does nothing for the feathered friends. They delight in flying in and out, landing on the trellis I made from bamboo and twine, hopping around in the soil.
The birds know that I planted the seeds without me telling them, scattering dirt across the ground on the search for what they already know is there.
I go out into the garden one morning and two radishes have been removed. As if someone yanked them out, decided they weren’t good enough, and left them. Discarded radishes. It sounds like title of a book that I would probably read. I take them inside and wash them off. If the bird isn’t going to eat them, then I will.
This discard is the work of a robin. Or at least I think it is. The same job was done a few days earlier on a pot with sweet pea seedlings in it, one of the seedlings yanked out and left for me to find, like a clue.
Is it the same robin who has been coming to the bird bath and ruffling his feathers as he bathes? Or one of the other many birds that begin their singing around 5 in the morning? I don’t know. I have yet to catch any bird in the action, but we joke that if he’s going to keep digging up plants we’ll have to not refill the bird bath. A kind of bird time out.
I keep pushing more seeds into the ground, less because I want what they will produce and more because of the promise of potential that they hold. It’s the act of planting that feels like some kind of sustenance I am in need of in this current moment. I want the weight of hope held in the palm of my hand, no matter how light it might feel.
It’s hard not to marvel at all these seeds, at all that they hold inside. Every single thing that they need to thrive enclosed in a small shell.
So much in the garden is entirely out of my control, and those surprises are the ones I love the most. The volunteer seedlings already abound. Several squashes and what I think are potatoes. This is the result of all the shovels full of compost placed in the beds earlier this spring. Last year’s kitchen scraps just waiting to be given a second chance.
I see one of them rising from the dark soil. A tiny green seedling, the hull of the pumpkin seed still enclosed around its minuscule leaves. The seedling is trying so hard to push up, having made it through the ground, and now wants to cast off this protective layer. As if it was shouting “I’m ready, I’m ready” and the pumpkin seed wouldn’t release the seedling from its embrace, quietly whispering, “not quite yet.”
The next day the pumpkin seed hull is on the ground, the top of the seedling bitten off. Robin? Someone else? I don’t know. But how tempting that seed must have looked. I can’t fault the birds. We’re sharing this space after all.
The remnants of the pumpkin seedling are still in the ground. I look closely, spot tiny leaves emerging from the middle of the two bigger sprouts that have been chewed off. Maybe there’s still a chance.
There’s something in the not knowing, the surprise of what will come.
But if I tend, if I wait, if I allow the sun, rain, and time to work their magic, then maybe, this too will grow.
-Anna
“Mary Oliver died without becoming a brand and yet became one anyway and maybe that’s inevitable. Maybe we don’t know how to love anything anymore without turning it into something commercial. Maybe we don’t know how to admire a person without turning them into a one-dimensional persona either: a collection of quotations devoid of context, a bumper sticker, an inspiration.”
on Mary Oliver merchIt’s worth ordering from Uprising Seeds simply because of the artwork on the seed packets.
“I learned recently that the word fathom, fæðm in old English, literally means to span the arms wide, to grasp, embrace. A fathom is then “the length of outstretched arms.” A means to measure based on the dimensions of the body, like so many original gauges of measurement. Which grew to also mean a thread, the length of an embrace, used to measure depth.”
writing beautifully as always.I learned about Rebecca Aldernet’s paintings this week and they are a delight.
When was the last time you thought about ostrich feathers?
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Rooting for the little pumpkin! My parents have a similar set up and yes, the deer come and nibble on everything. Some years ago I planted a beautiful hydrangea bush only to find it dug out and lying on its side some days later. I replanted it and the next day, found it dug out again and this time also chewed up, so it was in pieces, as if to make sure I won't plant it back. Blame that one on the fox...
Responding to an earlier post, I wondered if you had read this piece:
https://tricycle.org/magazine/ruth-asawa-art/?utm_campaign=00467399&utm_source=p3s4h3r3s