Family Daze
Gardening can be a most nurturing sort of hobby
By Debbie Farmer
I'm not sure what came over me. Maybe I needed something to do besides taking care of children, maybe it was the urge to get back to nature, or maybe it was temporary insanity, but this spring I decided to try a relaxing, new hobby--planting an herb and vegetable garden in my backyard.
"That's great, Hon," my husband said. "Just think of all of the money we'll save."
I knew he was humoring me, since most plants I brought home from the nursery had a life span that ranged from seedlings to the time I paid for them at the checkout counter.
I decided the best thing to do was to borrow my neighbor's mail-order plant catalog, since her yard always looked great. I figured plants traveling through the mail might be taken by surprise, and be safely buried in my yard before they knew where they were.
The catalog cover was encouraging, since it pictured a healthy, happy family tending their lush garden together. I flipped through the pages and picked out tomatoes, radishes, bell peppers, carrots, thyme, dill, oregano, and something I'm not sure was legal, but looked pretty.
Then I began filling out the form.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" my husband asked. "Remember the $50 Boston fern you bought that dropped all its leaves in two days?"
"That wasn't my fault," I said. "As soon as I got home it changed from a low-maintenance plant into Howard Hughes. It made all sorts of unreasonable demands I couldn't possibly keep up with."
My garden arrived six weeks later, in three crates the size of shoe boxes. "Stand back and don't step on it," I warned the children, as I picked up the boxes, and carried them to the backyard.
I placed the seedlings into the ground, according to the instructions. When I finished my husband came out.
"Where is it?" he said, squinting at the yard.
"Don't worry, it'll grow." I said. "Nurturing is the best part of gardening."
The next day I dug trenches around each seedling for irrigation, and encased them with wire mesh so they wouldn't be trampled. I spent the rest of the day pulling weeds and watering each seedling by hand. When I finished I staggered into the house and collapsed on the sofa.
According to the instruction guide, I needed to spend the next morning mixing up the special plant-food formula and sprinkling it on each plant with a teaspoon. By the afternoon I couldn't straighten up enough to stand.
"Mommy, what's wrong?" my daughter asked.
"Nothing. I'm relaxing."
The next day the booklet suggested I wake up before dawn to add fertilizer. I barely had time to make breakfast and take my daughter to school, before I had to dredge the irrigation system and put wire mesh around the corn seeds.
By the end of the week, I could barely stay awake through dinner and every muscle in my body ached.
"See, I was right," my husband said. "Gardening was a great idea. Soon we'll be saving money on our grocery bill, and I've never seen you look so rested and tranquil."
I considered telling him that by my calculations, our homegrown vegetables would be more expensive than, say, renting a private jet and flying to Club Med for the weekend. But I'm not that mean. I just stared at him from my prone position on the sofa and decided next time I wanted to try a relaxing, new hobby, I'd take up aerobics and hire a gardener instead.
Readers can contact Debbie Farmer at familydaze@home.com.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
