Companion Gardener

My current garden is the one I’ve tended the longest.  The original space was tractor tilled in the spring of 2006 in a spot we had originally considered turning into a pond.  The grass there grew so thick and lush; my husband was convinced the spot was spring fed.   A pond seemed a happier alternative to the mower stopping every two passes due to clipping-clogged blades. 

A pond also would cost about $4,000 to have dug.  For a smaller fee, we could rent a backhoe ourselves, but, let’s just say, the thought of a certain loved one angled down a slope while perched on top of a piece of heavy machinery just didn’t generate many (read “any”) feelings of confidence.  If I was going to spend money, I wanted it to be for a pond, not a hospital bill.

So we ix-nayed the ond-pay, and figured such a moisture rich spot might serve well for the garden.  We got it dug, and I passed out seed catalogues.  Everyone chose five or six things they wanted to see put in.  The kids chose pumpkins (the hugest variety offered), beans, carrots, potatoes, sunflowers, etc.  My husband limited his choices to two:  tomatoes and asparagus.

He came from the land of black loam, aka Wisconsin.  His father and step-mom, Kathy, were work-horses in the garden, and the fruits of their labor showed abundantly.  Living on a trout ranch, they had an ample supply of fish emulsion, and used it in every way, shape, and form.  When we visited in the summer, we’d head out to the garden with them and feast.  The first call to my husband came from the miniature forest called the asparagus patch.  This thing was HUGE!  I’m not sure how long they’d had it, but if you classified gardeners by their ability to grow asparagus, these two were the masters of all masters.

And on our farm, we’d fall more into the category of abysmal failures.  We bought 25 3 year-old crowns for a pretty penny, and on our new garden plot our family of four went by the book and planted them for optimal growth. 

And nothing came of it after year one.

Year two was no better.

What year are we in now?  By this time, the patch has been re-dug, replaced with sweet potatoes (which proved the soil’s just fine), garlic, and blueberries.  I don’t know anyone around here who has an ample patch, much less a few stalks of asparagus, so I blamed geographic location.  The one farm I know that can work this magic sells at the farmers market, so they get my support and I get my asparagus.

But, as life shows us sometimes, what we think is gone, where we think we failed, might just be illusory, moving differently through space and time.  As I was checking on my blueberry bushes this afternoon, something caught my eye.  Before I could finish the thought, what’s that?  I jumped for joy!  Asparagus!  The beautiful irony in all of this is that Kathy, the second of the two masters to pass away, left us just days ago.  When I saw the asparagus, she sprang immediately into my mind.  I know I planted it, albeit years ago, but I felt like she was there, with a final, “THIS is how you’re supposed to do it!” complete with her devilish grin.  Chalk it up to irony, coincidence, synchronicity, whatever.  All I can say is that the timing was really nice.

When the rest of the family got home, I whisked them all back into the garden.  They know this drill, and called out questions on the way down.  “It’s strawberries, I know it is!”  “Is it the blueberries?”  “Did you find an animal?” “Peas aren’t ready, are they?”  I got them situated and asked my husband to recall his favorite thing from his family’s garden.  “Aspa….!”  He stopped when he saw it, confused, yet delighted.  I snapped a few stalks, offered them all around, and declared, “To Kathy!”