Feed Me

My hand has formed a blister. The tool handle has rubbed it so many times, it’s raw. My shoulders feel strong and warm from the heat of the sun that’s beating down on them right now. I am sitting - well, more like squatting – over a plot of dirt in my garden. This pathway is overgrown with thick weeds. They are all bright, lush and green, but tough now to get out. I rake through the earth with my hands and grab out great chunks of these weeds. I chuck a patch, which looks rather bizarrely like a toupee. I feel as though I am hurling a large, green scalp through the air. I get up and grab my hoe. I whack at another patch of ground. I am thinking about everything and nothing while I am in the garden. It is the Great Void.

I think about the muscles in my back and shoulders. I think about the blister. I think about The Past. The Future. The Present. I think about people I know and don’t know. I think about books. I think about patience and impatience. I think about the intensity of the colours that surround me. I think about travel and architecture. I think about love. I think about weeds. I think about flowers. I think about Important Things. I think about fashion. I think about money. I think about Life. I think about what all of these vegetables are going to taste like once every inch of the garden bed has been tended to and weeded and loved.

I am fascinated by the work my husband puts into charting the plot each year. While the ground still lays frozen, royal blue pen lines are set out like a maze on dirty pieces of graph paper. The garden is huge and was dug entirely by hand. There was hard work and love and sweat turned over and spread into that soil. I love how over the course of a few short months, this giant brown square slowly turns abundant and green. Like a stop-motion camera, some days you swear you can actually see the plants growing before your very eyes.

I walk through the rows and pull the weeds by hand. My toes find their way into the warm earth. There are streaks on my cheek that map exactly where a wayward hair has fallen. The sun continues to beat down on me and my sundress dips into the dirt at my feet. This garden brings me peace and makes me feel useful. I appreciate it just as much for feeding my heart as it does my belly.

It starts out slowly and requires some degree of patience, a lifelong skill that I still struggle with but am working on. You turn the soil and prepare the land and drop tiny seed specks into that ground and then...you wait. And you wait some more. You wait so long, you wonder if anything's ever going to actually pop out of the ground. You start to think all of that hard digging and work might have been futile. But then, one day, you wander over to the patch of brown and you see something green! A tiny emerald green sprout or tendril or stalk has found its way to the surface, and you realize that all of that hard work was worth something after all.

That one tiny speck of emerald green sets off a chain reaction. Suddenly, there is more green sprouting out of the brown and then more and more and then the whole thing takes on a life of its own and starts to grow upwards. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, the sleepy plot of land comes to life. The plants are suddenly an inch tall, then a foot, then as tall as a three-year-old. The green bits sprout white or yellow or pink flowers. The flowers sprout food. And there you have it - the abundance of what feels like an entire farmers' market is just outside your back door.

My garden reminds me of the importance of patience. I walk through the rows and mentally measure and note the differences since last time. I rub the dark green leaves of the tomato plants as I walk by and inhale that lovely smell. I see the tiny tomatoes sprouting and know it’s only a matter of time until they will be on every plate I eat off from morning until night. I swear I can taste the hard work which makes each taste that much sweeter. There are neighbourhoods of peas and beans and broccoli, onions and garlic, turnip, lettuce, carrots, basil, tomatoes, corn, watermelon.

The apple trees in the orchard beside currently have mini versions of what will soon be their adults selves. These too have been planted with love and plotted on a chart from the person who lived on this land before we came along. There are apples that are best for pies and apples that are best for sauce. Some are perfect for cooking while others are best crunched into practically straight off the branch. There are crabapples for cousins with a particular penchant for the tart. There are now two yellow plum trees and a cherry tree to add to our chart.

Summer will sadly eventually come to an end, and this garden will soon be just another nostalgic memory of summertime love. There will be crops that produce so much food I couldn't possibly stuff another one into me. These will be picked and cleaned and chopped and mingled and stuffed into Mason jars, ready to eat at a later date when both the temperature and the sun have dropped. My husband will pore over recipes and produce meals with these provisions worthy of a five-star restaurant. The vibrant hues. The earthy taste. The juicy flavours. None of it compares. We are spoiled.

My garden has become one of my favourite things since I moved out to this often foreign-seeming place. It's made me see a different side of myself: a side that can live off and respect the land. It requires a lot of work and a lot of patience, but it's worth it. I will have to make it through another long, cold winter before I can feel the warm dirt under my feet and the first taste of sweet peas on my tongue again. But I know it will be worth the long wait.