Motivations

On the radio tonight, I heard an NPR story about the singer Adrienne Young, who is determined to spread the gospel about local and organic foods and about community gardening. That’s all well and good, but she doesn’t exactly look like a farm girl (in her photograph, at least)—her hands are too well manicured, her fingernails too long, perfect, and immaculate to ever spend much time actually touching the soil. I’m not saying she’s a hypocrite—far from it. She obviously cares about gardens and the condition of the earth, and by bringing them to the attention of her admirers and supporting the cause of seed saving, she is opening the way for many more people to come into contact with the idea of growing something on their own.

I find it strange, though, that gardens have become trendy, the latest thing to be hyped by singers. Dirt is so—well, dirty. And gardens are so full of weeds and bugs. But the weird thing about gardening, for me, is that although I have some fellow-feeling for these motives of growing food locally and not poisoning the earth, that’s not quite why I do it. Nor does it necessarily give me a peaceful feeling to be out there, looking at my plants. I’m always thinking about the next step, the next shovelful of dirt, the next foe. I do have pride in the results of my work, now that the squash and cucumbers have leaves approaching dinner-plate size, but last summer I went on caring for my plants even after they languished in the inhospitable mulch and unremitting heat.

The food, too, sometimes seems beside the point, even though some of my plants have grown to a size at which food can be harvested from them. The point is to grow and cultivate and selectively determine what plants thrive on a given space. In part, it’s a control game, and because my plants are thriving, I’m winning, for now, at least. That sounds somewhat twisted, I know, but it’s true. I like to dictate to the dirt, to tell it to push up a bean here or nurture a tomato there.

Would I recommend that everyone else grow a garden? As the Man with the Perfect Lawn says, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Gardening takes time, persistence, attention, and strength. Certainly, for those who are interested, it’s a marvelous ride. You get a new perspective on the summer itself, and you are drawn into closer proximity to the surrounding world, though not always in the most comfortable way. Spinach and peas like the cold; squash and melons love the heat. Humidity brings life-giving rain and death-dealing fungal diseases. The birds eat harmful insects, but they also snap up seeds and fruit.

So, yes, take that packet of seeds that comes with your Adrienne Young album and see if you can do something with them. Find a place to grow them. If it makes you frustrated to cater to their needs and discover their idiosyncrasies, then perhaps you’re not the gardening type. If you’re fascinated by failures as well as successes, you might get hooked on this venture, which (for good reason) was formerly the province of confirmed putterers and curmudgeons, people who mix a willingness to wait (which some might mistake for laziness) with incorrigible stubbornness.

Gardens defy the natural order, even while they affirm our position within it. Success, when it comes, is marvelous (and necessary), but the attempt itself, the ability to wring a certain strain of fertile beauty from chaos, has its own grandeur. The squash flower opens with a pomp greater than the sounding of trumpets in the imperial procession, and its issue is far more important to our continued existence.