In spring in Takoma, middle-aged homeowners turn to thoughts of love... of lawns, of gardens that produce leafy lettuce overflowing salad bowls, of lovely grape arbors providing shade and sweet, heavy grapes, of crispy carrots still attached to pert greens, rhubarb popping up painlessly year after year to make Grandma’s cake and … the ultimate nirvana … bunches of ripe tomatoes. (May I suggest a country white roll from the farmer’s market, piled with tomato slices interspersed with fresh mozzarella and lettuce and doused with balsamic vinegar and olive oil? It’s best served with a Louis Jadot beaujolais.)
But this is not Eden, people. This is a gardener’s war zone.
Our first enemy: our own pets. I keep my cats on leashes (more on that if you want) and Buddy, age 11 and morbidly obese has pretty much killed the rhubarb patch. One by one, he’s meandered around an unsuspecting rhubarb, wrapping the leash around the base, and then walked away, pulling the leash taut and yanking out the plant. I replant them but soon they throw up rhubarb hands and give up the ghost.
When I raked the leaves off the rhubarb patch this year, there was nothing. It may come back, but I hold out little hope.
And I overhear comments from men -- usually men, women don’t tend to obsess about lawns -- discussing ways to grown lawns in the shade. Takoma loves trees so we have little sunshine. Grass wants sun. And our love affair with dogs -- who run constantly and dig -- makes it even harder.
Then there’s the wild animals. I planted a grape vine a few years ago and it took off. It raced over to the similarly determined rose and the two are now wrestling for primacy of a fence with a wisteria from the other side making incursions of its own. When I move in, clipper in hand, determined to put each back in its compartment, I fill an entire garbage can with green vigor.
About midsummer, the grapes appear. They’re tiny flowers at first and tiny seeds. They plump up and we watch, gleeful that we might actually have actual grapes from our own garden. The kids play tricks on their friends, giving them bitter grapes to eat.
But, the cardinals have the advantage because they’re perfectly happy to eat the grapes bitter and half ripe. And eat they do. A brilliant red male spent much of August in our back yard gorging on grapes on the fence about four feet above the morbidly obese and useless cat.
And then there are squirrels and tomatoes. (Sorry -- have to breath deeply. I feel my blood pressure rising.) I once felt a strong urge to strangle a Ph.D in wildlife biology who pontificated to me about how squirrels don’t eat tomatoes.
This was after a fall where I had spent days and nights in running battles with the maurading bastards. They ate the paste tomatoes and they picked the giant almost ripe beefstake tomatoes, ate a few bites and dropped them in the neighbor’s yard. I put plastic netting over the tomatoes but they are clever and have lots of time on their hands. One slip on my part and they’re in there, picking, taking one bite and dropping.
The squirrels -- adaptable little bastards -- also taste the cantaloupes and watermelon. But I’m not proud -- I cut off the squirrel nibble and finish the fruit myself. (Don’t tell the family.)
The squirrels took a few years to discover the fig tree, which means that for eight years I had gobs, handfuls, buckets of figs. I gave them to passerby that I barely knew. But last year -- the fuzzy tailed eating machines moved in, picking, biting and dropping. I barely got enough figs for me. (Perhaps they’re on a Mediterranean diet?)
Our back yard is tiny, and fairly enclosed by fences and buildings so we’re unusual in that we have few problems with deer. This means that we can grow lettuce -- until the temperature hits 90 in mid-May and then the leaves are bitter and inedible.
Despite the care and time I put into the garden, I know that I will have little success except with basil - filling the fridge with the pesto that my kids stuff themselves with. And hot peppers. Off two plants I can get enough jalapenos and whatevers to freeze enough for an entire winter. I’ve also been known to put bags of them in the mailboxes of neighbors once my freezer is full.
And yet, each year, I start again. As I write, one-inch high tomatoes that I started from seed are in their square inch containers in front. I’ve also started peppers and basil and planted rows of lettuce, beans and spinach.
The squirrels watch, and I’ve already seen a female cardinal in the back. She was on the grape vine. Looking very optimistic.
