Garden Nerd
What do you want for supper, honey? Kale or Swiss chard?
In another life, I’m a research scientist (the one in which I’m not an interviewer). In this life, my garden is my research project. Every morning, even before I’m dressed, I can’t wait to go out and inspect. I visually measure every nano-inch the corn stalks have grown. I carefully watch what plants volunteer, and decide which ones to let go to seed so that I can collect their seed for next year. I notice every subtle change in my garden and who’s been there that isn’t supposed to be by the dog’s footprint on a cucumber mound or a rabbit’s droppings under the straw hay mulch. I don’t wait for the squash bugs to arrive; I look for their eggs under the large leafy growth of summer squash and squish them. 
I calculate where the sun will fall longest. Will the tomatoes cast too much of a shadow on my peppers? I experiment by planting the same seeds in different parts of the garden to see where they’ll grow best. While weeding the garden after a rain, I ponder the theory of chaos and watch for signs to pick the onion seed pods off or mound up the potatoes.
Like any other garden nerd, I like to look at seed catalogs. I always forget to wear the slip-on garden boots that I bought at The Farmer’s Supply store or the garden gloves that my husband bought me.
My garden is my biology lab of life, and I am a well-fed barefoot scientist with dirt under my fingernails.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Post note: Come out to spout or hear others out! Look at the poster art (by Kathleen Ingoldsby) that has sprung up in Floyd announcing our next Spoken Word Open mic.
June 13th, 2006 9:03 am
Your garden is awesome. I don’t garden. I can’t stand to have my hands dirty! But I wish I did, I am so jealous of everyone’s garden. DH does all the planting…
June 13th, 2006 9:37 am
Thanks, Nancy. After yesterday’s post I thought I should get out of the house!
June 13th, 2006 11:00 am
oooh kale please, the curly kind, quick fried with some sliced almonds! yummy! i wish so much that we had a garden, i think apart from the egg squishing, that i would get into that nowadays.
i am very envious and i admire you for managing to grow things well. my strawberries and tomatoes are growing rather despite me 🙂
June 13th, 2006 11:14 am
I’m actually a messy, intuitive gardner who only grows the basics and what wants to grow. We have red clay soil that need truckloads of manure every spring. My husband gets credit for doing that and all the major stuff, like tilling. I just putter.
I’ll take a photo at the end of the season and you’ll see how out of control the whole thing can get!
June 13th, 2006 11:37 am
This year I planted two tomatoe plants, one small cherry tomatoe and one big beefy tomatoe, in the flowerbed. I planted seads from the fairytale pumpkin and they all came up. Now the pumpkin vines are trying to trail out into the yard and the tomatoes are almost as tall as I am (5’5″ – I know it would be more impressive if they were as tall as my brother). The cucumber plants have flowers as does the bell pepper plant. Mom has 4 o’clocks that are waist high, but I don’t think they are supposed to be this tall. The watermelon seed I planted is coming up too. Now if we just have some fruit out of it all. Maybe my green thumb has returned.:)
June 13th, 2006 11:44 am
I often think if I had room for a decent garden, I could easily become a vegetarian.
Kale for me, please.
Mmm-mmm-mmm.
June 13th, 2006 12:10 pm
It’s almost like time lasped photography; watching the garden grow. Ours has tripled in size since putting it in only a few weeks ago. We never have to weed though because Oz’s uses that black tarp stuff. It traps the moisure in and the weeds out.
June 13th, 2006 4:40 pm
Kale for me too, please. I saute bacon, reserve the fat and crumble the pieces and set aside. Then I saute the kale in the bacon fat, and when it is wilted, I serve it with crumbled bacon on top. Doesn’t work for vegetarians – but it is to die for (and probably from….LOL)
June 13th, 2006 5:11 pm
Next year at this time, I will have flowers, I will have fruit and I will have vegetables. It is all about me, isn’t it? whoops.
June 13th, 2006 8:45 pm
I love it! I’m insanely jealous at your beautiful garden. My yard is too small to do much.
June 13th, 2006 10:57 pm
Your garden is so perfect! and pretty! and, and awesome!
I was excited because I know have one tiny tomatoe on my very protected 2 vines! I would love to have that to go into every day. Even though I know it is alot of work to look that great!
Very nice post.
June 14th, 2006 2:53 am
Having written western science off as strictly rinky dink, I tend to simply bark at my garden much in the same way that the early hominids barked at the moon. So, for me, gardening is an early form of art, science, and religion–the mix we had going before the evil 17th Century trifurcation of the Western Intellectual Tradition.
I plant tomatoes, chilies, cucumbers, and string beans. So really. What could go wrong?
And, yes, it’s all about order out of chaos and playing god in your own back yod. Your groundwork is something to looke at! Excellent work, Dr.~,:^)
June 14th, 2006 9:27 am
Hi Rick, The garden is continually dying as it is growing.
You sound like my folk friend Will http://www.swva.net/taonow/ who has been formative in the way I think and live.
June 14th, 2006 10:44 am
You have a great, laid-back, meaningful life-style. It’s easy to see that, like me, you’re in your element. And that’s what life is all about.
I only have a flower/plants garden, so I envy your ability with the veggies.
June 14th, 2006 11:48 am
Oh, I understand. Believe me, I understand.
June 14th, 2006 12:42 pm
Beautiful garden. I can’t even keep cut flowers fresh for more than two days in a vase in the house let alone dream about growing veggies from seed. (although, come to think of it, I did pretty well with herbs)
June 15th, 2006 12:06 am
I couldn’t pick kale from chard out of a lineup but love when someone else gives me greens. 🙂 Gardening is good.