Marigolds Galore
- Sunshine and Flowers
Our garden produced an abundance of good things: tomatoes, green peppers, black-eyed peas, okra, broccoli, sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds, herbs. That is the short list. The garden experiment also grew a most delicious, prized product that I never imagined would spring from this plot of land: connections. You heard it, connections and these were not from Facebook.
Who would have thought that growing things would provide a smorgasbord of personalities to interact with? Take, for instance, a new friend who drove by and stopped one Saturday afternoon. An older guy, he limped up to the garden’s edge, accepted the invitation to join us and then told the story of the best tasting green onions he had ever had. It seems a lady he had worked for years ago would fry bacon and then add the sliced green onions for a mouthwatering stir fry. It was a simple dish you could tell he relished just by the smile on his face and the “oooh, man” comments he made describing it. He would almost lick his lips when he talked about it. We got the recipe that day and shared our green onions. Our next visit, we gave him a client’s recipe for Jalapeno Poppers as we filled his arms with ripe jalapenos picked from plants bent over from the weight of so many peppers. We saw our friend two or three other weekends over the summer. As he drove by, he’d see we were working and ease his old 90 foot-long Cadillac into a parking space to stop a while and trade gardening and life stories.
Zinnias for Days!
Or what about the buyer client whose mom is a dedicated and savvy gardener whom I reached out to for insight while trying to follow instructions on planting cucumbers in “hills?” It was her advice on the zinnia seeds, though, that produced one of the better highlights of our summer project. “Plant those zinnia seeds thick. You will be glad you did,” she said. Wow! Was she so right. This wonderful woman shared her wisdom with me and her words flowered into such beauty! We’ve cut zinnias for everyone we know. Janice, our office manager and another who spent many weekend hours planting and weeding in the garden, cuts a bouquet every week and graces our office with brilliant color.
Or let’s talk about the client who shared his delight over his mom’s squash and onion casserole one day while we were finishing up a call about the upcoming sale of his home. By the call’s end, I had his mom’s number and a charge to find out just how good that dish was. Of course, I called and made another connection. Since then, his mom and I have shared recipes and a huge bouquet of zinnias that she took home on the day she stopped to check on the sale. Of course, we visited and talked not just business but about our homes and children, and she has promised to send me another recipe for squash that she guarantees kids will eat.
- Green Peppers to Share
A good friend visited the garden one day after lunch and picked jalapenos and other veggies to take home. A great couple visited with Tim and me during a Friday afternoon garden “happy hour” where we all laughed and squawked over the size of the okra we forgot to harvest. I gardened one Saturday morning and handed out bags of squash and green peppers to surprised customers who stopped by to drop off their storage or apartment rent. My friend Janey pulled up and donated a beautiful morning glory from her flowerbed for us to plant which took over one entire bean tepee and “glorified” the garden through July and August. My parents visited over Father’s Day and left with boxes of squash and cucumbers. My favorite garden guru, Aunt Clara, came with them and gave me her treasured blessing on my first attempt at gardening. And Roger, a garden mentor who hooked me into this project with his own garden success stories last summer, traded plant disaster stories with me recently and helped me overcome the end of the summer blues I’ve been feeling.
My husband and I have spent hours in our garden planting, talking, weeding, talking, harvesting, talking. We’ve worked out business issues, kid dilemmas and shared some treasured time with each other. He planted pumpkins and ornamental corn late in the season and gave me an update yesterday. Our pumpkins are a bit small, but they are growing! Maybe they will be ready for Halloween.
Measuring to Plant
When we began, I thought this would be a kids’ garden. Our daughter and a friend did measure out the 18” spread with a ruler and a trowel and plant the pepper plants. She did harvest the first tomato and expressed surprise each time a new vegetable appeared, but I found that she was much more interested in playing “office” with an old typewriter and the office intercom system than she was with growing things. We’d lock the front office door; leave the back door open so we could hear her, and off she’d go into her own garden of make-believe while her dad and I played in the dirt.
Waning now, the garden is looking pretty awful and neglected. We stopped weeding and are now just harvesting the last of the veggies. I am a bit sad, now, when I look out and remember the beauty and promise of early summer. Thank goodness, the zinnias are still growing and hide the detritus from the road.
Lots of Weeds Too.
Soon, it will be time to mow it all down and put our project to bed for next year. And next spring, we will be here again, I hope. While growing a garden has been hard work, it has given me a greater appreciation for the vegtables we eat and for the farmers who do this every year to put food on our tables. We may have missed many weekends at the lake to pick and put up our produce, yet the satisfaction of growing something ourselves and the richness of the connections we made has planted a seed to start again next spring.
I’m in Nashville anticipating this unique event slated for Saturday. 
