The Smaller the Better

Even thought it’s January I have begun my garden. That means I am in the planning stage. Actually I began in December. I may started too late. My main problem is narrowing down choices. I love seed catalogs. I love them so much the pages get crumpled and wrinkled. But that’s ok because before I can completely wear out the precious little book I get another one with still more glorious choices. I only subscribe to one seed catalog. Any more would be sensory overload.

I came to gardening late. I grew up on a farm and each year my father would plant a HUGE garden. I’m talking four rows of corn stretching from one end of the field to the next. Five rows of butterbeans, three rows of peas, watermelons, okra, squash, more beans, and four kinds of tomatoes plus two kinds of peppers, marigolds, turnips, and whatever else he wanted to experiment with. My parents decided gardening would build my character, thus I was the water bearer. I mean that exactly the way it sounds. I had a little plastic bucket that I watered the garden with. Not the whole thing, but I would be given a row, say the peppers, and Dad would fill up a 5 gal. bucket with water. I would dip my little bucket in the big one and lug it down to the plants, watering one at a time. Dad sat in the shade and watched me. When the big bucket got low he refilled it. This seemed to go on forever. I suppose he thought it was cute. I thought it was work.

Besides watering I also had to shell peas. I didn’t like vegetables so doing so much work for something I wasn’t going to eat made it all the more torturous. This was another chore that seemed to go on forever. My mother would set me in a chair, put newspaper over my lap and dump a pile of pods on me. She’d set a pot on one side of me to throw the peas in and more newspaper on the floor to throw empty hulls on. I’d have so many pea pod in my lap I couldn’t get up. I’d come close to getting done and she’d say, “Here, finish these peas while I go wash dishes.” and she’d hand me the ones she had been shelling. When she came back she say, “Oh good, you’re almost done with those. I’ve got some more for you.” My thumb turned green.

After the growing season ended I had to pick up bean poles and stack them for the next year. The poles were cane and had sharp points all over them from the leaves. They were very dry and most of them broke. They were light so they tended to blow away. Putting up bean poles isn’t much better, but at least there’s something to look forward to because when the vines grow up they make a cool green tent.

After doing all this work I decided gardening wasn’t for me. A few years ago my father got a little smarter and planted the garden closer to the house which meant no longer trekking in the humidity. He also wisely planted the garden near the drainage ditch and within reach of the hose pipe. Finally he made the garden small. He still plants a wide variety, just not so much of it. Now it’s five or six plants instead of five rows.

This made the garden all very charming. Gardens should be little. The smaller the better. I don’t think anything large should be called a garden. When a garden gets too big it becomes a property. Puttering around a garden is fun. You can’t putter around a property. All you can do is maintain it.

Charmed as I was by that small space I could still see the work involved. I am opposed to work and I avoid it whenever possible. In order to avoid breaking the ground and chopping weeds I created a container garden.

Container gardens are wonderful. Easy to start and easy to maintain. If something dies I simply remove the pot. I don’t have to worry about unsightly bare spots. Weeds don’t have much of a chance to become established. If a storm is brewing I can take the entire garden in the house where it will be safe. I can add to it. I can give it away. But what I love best about a container garden (and this is very silly) is I can rearrange it. One day I can have roses growing next to peppers and the next day I can have the peppers beside the aloe. During the summer I move the pots around every single day and it makes me so happy.

I must get back to my seed catalog and order some more pots. I only have 78 or so.