There's So Much to Learn

I started gardening again last May after roughly a 40 year absence. I don't remember gardening with much fondness or enthusiasm when I was a child. It was a chore. An inescapable duty as a family member. This was due to youth perhaps. Wanting to be with friends rather than weeding or rotatilling or watering or the hundreds of other things that need to be done to make a garden productive. 

I was in my head much of the time then. And gardening requires attention. To be successful at it requires active participation. Thoughts of drawing, Mad magazine or Saturday morning cartoons were distractions. Unfortunately, they were also my mantras. 

My parents had no such distractions. My dad loved work in general and coming from a farm family had the requisite knowledge for gardening: what the best fertilizer was (aged horse manure), composting, making sure any wood ash ended up in the garden, when to till, how deep to plant, when to plant, when and how to thin, what to plant next to what to keep away pests, what to grow yourself and what not to waste one's time on. 

My mother knew much of this also and was in charge of provisioning us through the long New York winters. From late August to October she was busy canning beans, tomatoes, pickles, and applesauce. Our basement shelves were lined with jars of yellow, green, red and pink. Like so many jarred vegetable soldiers waiting to be called into action. Our root cellar was full of white and red potatoes, onions, apples and squash. Our garden was a cornucopia; I slept walked through most of the experience. 

So, here I am. Approaching my sixth decade and just now rediscovering gardening. So what's different this time? It's not the solitary activity it once was. My mentor, Mr. Maeda, is generous with his knowledge and patient in teaching me about gardening. We talk and I learn anew or am reminded of things buried in my subconscious. How to use a hoe, how to thin, how to plant, when to plant. But, of course, some things are different. I've learned how to construct a hotbed to give sweet potatoes a jump on the gun. I know how to plant and thin daikon radish, a skill unneeded in the an American garden. I've planted sweet potatoes and peanuts for the first time, learned that peanuts don't need chemicals or pesticides to thrive and are therefore safe to eat no matter what their country of origin. The drives to and from the field are filled with conversation about topics I didn't know previously: rice fields are kept full of water until about two weeks before harvest to keep the weeds down; sweet potatoes and peanuts will not grow much further north than where we live; northernJapan is too cold for most root vegetables; there are two kinds of fireflies in Japan. It's all very edifying.

I know so little still. If I had to survive on my present skills as a farmer I wouldn't last a year. That knowledge gives me tremendous admiration for the millions of small farmers around the world who manage to feed their families year after year. It also explains why farming is an inherently conservative occupation. One doesn't meddle with success until what you are doing doesn't work any more. Tradition and experimentation in equal parts. It's a constant puzzle to figure out how to stay ahead of the game. 

There's so much to learn.