Garden Update

This is it. My crazy garden. I know therapists always use gardens as metaphors for one's mental state, so how can I resist the temptation?

Here is what I will say about my garden. It is thriving. It is unruly. It is out of control. It is not well-behaved or orderly, but it is gorgeous, wild and full of very healthy and delicious vegetables. It reminds me of my children. Not enough discipline, but I love the end result.

And I can't help but think that the garden has set in motion a chain of events that has changed the whole back yard. Coincidence? Luck? Cause and effect? I cannot say, but since I put in the garden Jonathan trimmed our back yard tree to give the garden more light. Our neighbor came in and hacked back his jungle for the first time since we have lived here, giving my hidden terrace garden about two more hours of sunlight a day. It rained more this spring than it has in recent memory. All the other plants have gotten competitive, and they are all thriving, too. We spend more time in the backyard.

I am grateful for my garden. For my giant zucchini and baby kale and fresh lettuce, for my aggressive beans and my exuberant tomatoes, for my persistent wild arugula, and my cucumbers on the run, and for the riot of green that is flourishing back there on what was once a patch of forgotten, sandy soil.

I can't believe I did it. I feel empowered.

Zucchini Baby

Here is Theo, posing with his zucchini baby. This monster zucchini appeared suddenly, over a weekend, hiding under a leaf as big as my head.

My garden is thriving, reaching for the sun, beginning to yield its summer bounty. I am astounded. It is not a well-tended garden, but it is a happy one. Pictures to come.

Zucchini for dinner tonight, and tomorrow for breakfast, and the next day for lunch...

My First Harvest

Here is my first harvest--a few leaves of lettuce for a fresh salad--an incredible victory for a trepidatious gardener like me.

Half has been eaten. Gobbled, I should say.

Jonathan broke out a fine white wine. And we ate from this bowl.

The leaves were so fresh. They exploded with flavor. Jonathan said better with no dressing at all.

It is a small thing. But for me, the woman who kills all plants, a cause for personal celebration. Perhaps soon a radish, or a bean.

Stay tuned...

My Gardening Muse

One of my goals for my 43rd year on this earth was to plant a vegetable garden.

I do not just NOT have a green thumb. I have a brown thumb. I have a psychological block against gardening. Not gardens. I love them. I regard them as among the most beautiful places in the world. Especially when they are full of sweet smells, and fruits and vegetables you can pick and eat right there standing in the dirt. That, for me, is happiness.

Two years ago Jonathan tried to work me through it. He encouraged me to plant wild flowers. I love them, AND they are wild, and require virtually no care. He bought the seeds. Mixed them in with the manure and fertilizer. All I had to do was slosh around the gunk, then smear it in the front yard.

What joy it brought me.

Months later we had California poppies, which you know I adore, and Baby Blue Eyes, and other delicate, sweet wild flowers. EAch day as I walked down the 43 stairs to our house they made me happy. And though I had done little -- like children you plant them and look out for them, but the rest is up to the Gods--I felt I had grown them.

Still, my block against gardens is deep. I have even talked about it in therapy--why Jonathan can plunge in, plant, love, nurture--while I, who love to nurture people, will not touch the dirt. My gifted shamanic healer told me that of course I did not want to plant a garden. My life was about being uprooted. About leaving. To plant a garden, which takes time, is not a logical expenditure of energy for someone who is constantly leaving. Which is what I have always done.

I knew I needed help.

So this year I enlisted Jill Tanner, a dear family friend who nurtures a family, and multiple gardens. I love her tomatoes so much I stand by her pool in the summer and eat them warm off the vine in the sunshine. Last year I was bitten by a bee as the sweet yellow juice dribbled down my arm. I swelled up to my elbow, but that didn't stop me from eating them again the next time I was over.

Jill came over and walked our property with me. Our yard is on a 45 degree angle, mostly bedrock with a thin layer of sandy soil, and most of the available dirt and sun is up about 90 stairs. For our garden, she picked the most distant corner of the yard. A patch of open sandy soil and sunlight that is reasonably flat. Getting fertilizer, dirt and top soil up there will give me thighs like Eric Heiden. Jill suggested getting the gardeners to carry the soil up, but Jonathan said that just would not be fair to them. So it will be us, climbing like Peruvians up the terraces to farm.

Yesterday we went and got wood. I built my gardening boxes with the boys.

This morning I went and bought my discount Smith and Hawkens composter for 45 dollars, with a discount from the city who wants to encourage citizens to do backyard composting and recycling. How cool! Who knew!

There on a forgotten driveway in Griffith Park a cool guy named Steve sold me my composter and walked me through how to use it. The world smelled like mulch and eucalyptus and me gardening felt possible.

Jill has promised to be my gardening muse/life coach (for life is a gardening metaphor, is it not?)

If I get my dirt in, she said, she will give some of her tomato seedlings: Sungold, Nyagous, and who knows what else.

Just building my boxes, getting ready to build my composter, and beginning my bag of coffee grinds and cooked oatmeal to compost in the kitchen, had already made me feel hope.

Let's see if this gypsy can settle down and grow a plant or two. I know I can cook a feast if I do.