Tending Our Gardens

Every spring, there is a small window within which I need to get all of my garden work finished. This is because I don’t tolerate heat, humidity or mosquitoes well. We have a 4”x16” flower garden out front, shrubs along the house front, a vegetable garden out back, a rose garden, a grape arbor and a pergola. A third of our back yard is a hill which I’ve turned into a rock garden. Dan dislikes gardening but helps me lug the 40lb. bags of compost, manure, etc. all over the property to the gardens. The rest is up to me. 

Naturally, I’m frantic to get everything weeded, planted and rit up, (a Pennsylvania expression meaning, set to rights). This year, I had an 18th c. concert to prepare for, have an up-coming 2 hr. background music gig for a tea at the Salem Athenaeum, Christmas shows to book and start rehearsing for, , a blog to write, my book to finish editing, and live stories to go over to perform at The Moth. Dan and I had to deal with a very frustrated Border Collie whose leg injury prevented her from getting enough exercise for 2 months. All of the above occurred during my gardening window.

In the 80’s, I wrote a song called, “Little Garden in the Springtime.” In it, the singer’s horror at the high prices of fruit and vegetables makes her decide to grow her own. The problem is that the singer’s mind is a lot like mine: it drives her crazy anticipating disasters that will befall her garden from voracious deer. So, with each verse, the singer buys more protection: a fence, a gate, netting…you get the idea. By the last verse, she is guarding the garden with a gun, while consoling herself with thoughts of all the money she’s saving by having a garden.

We all have a small window in which to enact that which we think is important. That window is called our lifespan. Each of us must choose how we fill our days and spend our time. Whether we spend it having fun, being with those we love, building for the future, helping others, scrolling on our computers, learning about the past, sitting on our couches, or working our asses off is totally up to us. But a good portion of America has become watchful, spending time and treasure guarding against “deer” who will probably never invade our gardens. 

As a person who always takes on too much, I am not the one to lecture anyone on balance. But I can say this: don’t wast your life waiting for something good or bad to happen. If you take action doing things you want to achieve, good things will happen, like seeds sprouting in your garden. Being fearful of what might happen means you won’t take risks, won’t engage with people unlike yourself, and won’t enjoy the present. 

Sometimes, my seeds son’t sprout or get eaten by the birds and rabbits. I just make sure I plant enough so that if some die, others will survive.