I had such a good time with my garden last season. It was the first time I had ever capital-t Tended a garden in my life, and it was a deeply meaningful experience for me. I learned a lot about myself in the process, because I kept allowing my garden to be a metaphor. Also, I had more tomatoes than I could give away, the biggest pumpkin I have ever seen, peppers forever, and sunflowers that went up to here.
I have been intensely focused on CPTSD recovery from child abuse for a couple of years. I work on it in therapy every week, and I work on it in between sessions, when I’m able. Walking my garden twice a day gave me lots of opportunities to reflect on The Work that I was doing, and I’m pretty sure it gave me an extra d4+1 on all my saves.
I live in zone 10B, and we can grow just about anything here, all year long, if we’re willing to do some extra work during the frigid 40 degree nights we endure for up to a whole week every January. I’ve never done that before, because I’ve never felt connected enough to my garden to get the winter survival gear out of the trunk.
But this past winter, I thought I’d give it a go. I looked into it, and saw that most of the winter stuff available to me didn’t interest me enough to plant and Tend it. But I read about planting a cover crop, and that sounded pretty cool. I liked the idea of putting a ton of seeds down and staying out of their way while they did their thing for a couple of months.
I ended up choosing a mixture of oats, peas, and radishes. I cut everything down to a nub, to let the roots die off and nourish the soil, and tossed the seeds all over the place.
Over the winter, they sprouted and grew into one hell of a cover crop. The peas produced beautiful, delicate, purple and white flowers. The oats got so tall, and surprisingly smelled kind of sweet, too. Marlowe loved eating big blades of grass every day. I noticed that they sort of whistled or hummed softly when the breeze was just right. Depending on the sunlight, they looked green or blue.
About a month ago, they started to dry up. Marlowe lost interest in the grass, which I presume wasn’t as sweet as it was when it was still cold at night. Anne and I planned this season’s garden, with fewer tomatoes, and I began to prepare the planting beds.
I started clearing the cover crop out, one section at a time. The peas were all dead and crumbled in my hands. I turned them into the soil. There was one radish, a big daikon-looking thing that filled the air with a spicy blast when I yanked it up. Then there were the oats, three and four feet tall, growing in thick clumps that formed a tiny forest for ants. I pulled them out, one at a time, shaking all the soil off the roots. Dust clung to my hands and forearms.
I started on one side, and worked my way down and around, one clump at a time. The soil came up and fell off the roots easily. It fell back into fluffy mounds that I swept into the holes left behind. I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my right hand, then wiped the mud I’d left behind with my left hand. I tried both forearms before I started laughing and accepted my muddy forehead.
I kept working, silently thanking the oats for doing exactly what they were asked to do as I cleared one and then the next and the next.
I blinked sweat out of my eyes, shook some mud off my head, and looked at the newly-cleared garden. The soil was fluffy and rich. Loamy, I think they call it. It was ready for the growing season, and I was ready to plant it.
But first, in the final corner, there were a couple clumps of very tall, very thick, oats to pull out. I considered leaving them, so Marlowe could continue to have her grass snacks, but she hasn’t been that interested for about two weeks, at least.
“You have done all that was asked of you,” I said, “you can rest, now.” I wrapped my hand about the base of the clump nearest to me and gently pulled it up. I shook the soil out of its roots, put it to the side, and moved on to the next one. I stopped suddenly and stared through the little forest.
There was a deep green … something … against the wooden edge of the planter. Some kind of hornworm, maybe? A beetle I’ve never seen before? What the hell is that?
I parted the stalks and saw a single jalapeño hanging from the top of a single stalk. The nub I cut back at the end of last year, safely hidden by the cover crop, grew back at some point, flowered, and produced a single, perfect, beautiful fruit while nobody was looking, or expecting anything from it. I looked closer and two additional flowers revealed themselves.
I cleared the remaining oats, careful to not disturb my unexpected jalapeño. It’s obviously thriving, but the flowers are so delicate before they begin to bear fruit; they must be treated with care, even if that just means being careful around them. It’s good to do that, from time to time, I think: remember to take care. We can easily damage something we aren’t even thinking about, when we are careless.
I didn’t expect anything from the cover crop. I just put it down and hoped the seeds would grow. I didn’t expect anything from this jalapeño. In fact, Mr. Bond, I expected it to die.
It’s amazing what happens when we plant seeds, and tend to our gardens, without any expectations, isn’t it?
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Your writing is so beautiful, it makes me want to cry.
Thank you Wil … beautifully written. I hope you find peace more and more often, and that the bad parts grow less, and come less often. May your gardening, family, and friends all flourish.
What a lovely and meaningful piece. Essays like this mean all the more to me since I started my transitioning from a comic-book writer in his 70s to a comic-book writer in HER 70s. Thank you.
Wil, you do my heart good. Thanks so much.
Beautifully described, Wil, I could see what you experienced in my mind. It is still strange to me the experiences that can arise from finally feeling safe, even after many years of work on my childhood trauma. When my amygdala could finally stand down, an amazing world of possibilities opened up, and I can see more colors, more textures, more beauty. Since my body isn’t working so hard to protect me, I can truly relax into an experience, rather than just hurrying to get though it to the next thing. I don’t need to get out ahead of the next possible hurtful thing in order to be safe – I am safe, and I can take care of myself if I do not feel safe. You have been open and vulnerable about your journey with CPTSD and child abuse; your journey has normalized speaking out about it and healing.
What a beautifully, new perspective on gardening. Having grown up in the country, on a farm even, gardening was a required option in our home. It was a chore. Myself, as an adult, I left gardening there. I didn’t have to do it anymore and I didn’t. These days, my gardening consists of a few house plants. They do give me joy, but nothing like what you described. Thank you for reminding me that there is more to a garden than the produce we may take from it. There is also this connection and growth of self too. I like that. Thank you.
This was beautiful and healing to read. It’s good to focus on taking the steps and care every day, not for the fabled day when Everything Is Perfect but just because you need to keep living and moving and changing and thriving. I need these reminders of the here and now, of the things I can do and am doing. I need to remember that there’s good in just that, but also good and even great further down the road.
Your way with words is so beautiful, Wil. Thank you for sharing such lovely experiences.
Consider a wabi-sabi greenhouse.
The garden sounds great. I used what my grandmother taught me when I was lucky enough to spend a summer when I was 8. One side veg, and the other side of the garden was berries and trees. I spent a lot of that summer, sitting in teh cherry tree, reading comics, and munching. Grandma even climbed to the top of the picking ladder, leaned up against the trunk, and we traded comics – gigling, chuckling, and muncing cherries.
When I built a garden for my mom, she was delightd to have that thing that reminded her of her mom. Work often made it something on teh checklist though, so, I began to tend it regualarly, and like you enjoy your garden, it became my Zen on Sundays. A coffee, music or audibook, or just hangin out with the robins and cardinals, letting time not be a thing.
One of the best elements of the garden, became the garden greenhouse. I took up one whole 4′ x 8′ planter box (also, all hand-built(. There was no plan for it. I used 1′ x 3′, a hand-saw, and wood screws, and not a cordless, but simple screwdriver. It started with finding the middle-ish, and setting up two center posts on either side of hte box, and then working out the ret of hte frame.
Eyeball architecture; cut the matching posts or beams to match, but forget the tape measure and exactitude at the garden gates.
Cover it in plastic, and staple it all in place. Challenge yourself iwth mods like flap vents, or building in window vents, and definitely the challenge of building a door.
In the end, the greenhouse looked like a crystal, with it’s multi-angled roof. One side was moded frequently to hold different seeding shelves, and for having garden stuff/tools handy. The idea being that the hand-made green house is constantly being modified, and changes in much the same way that the garden will grow and evolve over time.
Just thought I’d plant that seed (eyerool, cough).
Steady on.
Such a peaceful, lovely description of garden work! Thank you!
I’ve been a fan of yours for years, Will. Always drawn to whatever you do … Tabletop, Big Bang, Ready Room, podcasts you are on. Just started following your webpage and reading your blog posts. After over three decades, after reading this lovely garden post, I’m realizing you’re not simply talented, you’re brilliant. Intellectually, yes. But, more importantly, emotionally. Watching you open your heart on Ready Room and on podcasts … and now reading this lovely piece … gosh, you’re just such a good person with so much empathy and love. I see you. I appreciate you. Thank you for touching my heart and so many others.
That was lovely, thanks Wil.
Thank you for sharing this Wil. I love it when your thinky thoughts spark my brain.
Thank you for this. It was very relaxing for my brain. I followed along and lived the jalepeno along with you.
I’m not crying; you’re crying.
What a lovely post.
Didn’t Voltaire write a whole book about that? The satisfaction of tending one’s garden. This year’s crop thrives even if a previous crop was neglected and abused. The things that happen to us in earlier seasons do not ruin this year’s crop. Hang in there!
New t-shirt idea:
Boothby in the streets,
Riker in the sheets.
HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA!!
Your email was a pleasure to read! Although it can be backbreaking, I love tending my small garden. Seeing the flowers bud is so satisfying!
Thanks for subscribing to my blog! It’s important to me that I be able to reach everyone who is interested in my stuff, and this is the best way I can do that. I appreciate you validating that for me 🙂
Splendid work, Wil! I love how the metaphor holds, and what you get in return for the hard work is not always exactly in what is produced. I have been doing my own since we finally were able to buy a house (a good thing too, at the beginning of the skyrocketing rent era) and have benefitted from this connection to the soil and earth, even pleased to see the bugs and worms enjoy. Every year is a new project, and if the pumpkin creeps over and takes over the garden like last year, well, earth magic lesson learned! No pumpkins, unless they creep out of the compost. I think I am still amazed that the planting and harvesting actually bears fruit.
Truly a beautiful, thoughtful, and insightful post, Wil. Thank you for tending to your writing craft so well.
Digging in the dirt is sooo therapeutic!
I’m glad you enjoyed!
Thank you for that beautiful moment of calm in my chaotic day. I deeply appreciate it.
What a beautiful letter! Very interesting & calming as I visualize you working in your garden while my husband & I, in west central Indiana, try to do the same despite the crazy weather. Thanks for sharing & God bless 😊
What a beautiful letter! Very interesting & calming as I visualize you working in your garden while my husband & I, in west central Indiana, try to do the same despite the crazy weather. Thanks for sharing & God bless 😊
I know you grew up in Southern California and I lived there for a few years, but if you think 40F is frigid…well. That’s “ooh, time to open the window!” weather for me. It’s all relative.
I’m glad you can garden because I am Death to plants and while my guy and the pre-existing roommate have a ton of stuff growing I simply admire the plants and will enjoy the veggies once they’re here. Our growing season in these mountains is short and intense!
This, and you, are beautiful.