garlic and rye

We’ve been at our place in Charlemont for almost two months now – we moved in about the middle of October, well after the first frost. It took us a good week to move in, and so it wasn’t until the end of October that I actually took to the garden. It had been abandoned mid-July, and so there were still a few persistent peppers on the stalk and mounds of mint. But the other inhabitants were the usual weedy suspects – purslane, shepherd’s purse, chickweed, galinzoga, dandelion, plaintain (all of which, by the way, are edible, delicious, and some of the first to come out in spring). It was completely grown over, so the first task was simply to get back to bare ground. A little odd to be weeding in late October freezing rain, but one has to start somewhere.

And that’s it, that’s the secret. Start somewhere, anywhere. I am not a gardener – in fact, most things that I hesitantly take into my care whither, and if they manage to hang on it’s in spite of, not because of, the misguided care I give. But I want to garden – it is one of the simplest, most cost-effective and environmentally beneficial actions we can take, as long as you don’t dump fertilizer and pesticides everywhere. But there are many a blog that expound on the wonders of organic gardening (see Cella’s!). Anyway, I don’t even have gardening tools, so I went at the garden with an oversized serving fork.

Well and darn it I want garlic. Hard-necked varieties do well in cold climates, and they’re planted in the fall, mulched with leaves or straw or whatever else you’ve got, and then harvested the next July. By the time I’d gotten things ready all the garden centers had run out of garlic, so I just picked some up at the co-op. I planted two corms (not bulbs, as they’re separated into cloves), and patted them to sleep with a blanket of straw. It’ll be a long wait, but maybe I’ll get to make fresh pesto and pickles next summer and fall.

But, remember, I am not a gardener! One of the jolliest and most energetic people I’ve met is John, a volunteer at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, Mass. He’s headed up the community garden in Wellesley for over thirty years, and knows a thing or two about plants. After a snowy April fool’s day, he came in whistling saying he’d planted the first of his garden in snowy, almost-frozen ground. I looked at him rather shocked, and he shrugged and said, “Well, Hannah, plants want to grow.”

Indeed they do. We are inspired but intimidated by expertise, I think – we take tests in high school that tell us what our talents might allow us to do. A bachelor’s is often not enough; we need to be masters before we begin. What a suffocating assumption. We’ve learned we have to learn, in fact, before we do. I don’t know how many times I’ve proclaimed what I’m not: an artist, a musician, a singer, a gardener, a writer.

Creation, then, can seem to us looming, scowling down at us – hallowed and distant. When, in fact, it’s just a seed. A pen, a crayon. It’s a minute. And so much of it is generously passive, out of our hands. I got a little crazy after the garlic, and decided to try some winter rye, to cover crop the rest of the garden and try to nourish the soil a bit. I got a pound of seed, and as my hands were chilly and there was tea to be had inside, I didn’t really even plant it. I tossed it about, unevenly, and then sort of raked it into the soil with my hands, and patted it down. Sort of. I didn’t even water it.

And now I look out the window, and there’s the sere, yellow patch of hay, and then a haze of soft, etched green throughout the rest of the garden. The rye isn’t growing evenly, but there it is, growing.

It can be hard to begin. But we and plants are hearty, and do desperately want to grow.