My grandfather was a farmer (in miniature), with a half a city lot dedicated to his garden. He had his own tiller and at least twenty tomato cages. I remember the deep freezer in the basement, full of gallon-sized freezer bags of tomatoes. Once I dug a hole that was about five feet deep and began a compost pile. He preferred chemical fertilizers, but he let me tilt my windmill. One year we built a very solid, very sturdy trellis that stretched at least 15 feet. It supported the most wondrous pole beans. The next door neighbor complained about it; I thought it was genius. We talked other designs and blueprints that rattled through his head. He told me about his idea for a mechanism to lower the top of a convertible. That was the year I began to picture him as an engineer and wonder if he would have been if he had the opportunity.
After high school, I didn't help in the garden anymore. Summer classes, summer jobs, and finally moving out of state kept me away. He teased me about being too much into email to do any real work anymore. So it's been a very long time since I've coaxed food from dirt.
This year I started my garden. I spent hours upon hours removing sod (basically I pulled up lots and lots of grass with a spade). I joined the Garden Resource Program and have been hooked up with seeds, plants and all kinds of organic dreams. No pesticides for me. It's a small garden, half of my postage stamp backyard. And yet I feel like my Grandfather's child: I am a farmer. Today I cooked with basil that I harvested; my lettuce and spinach have been making appearances at my table; I know now what a potato plant looks like; and I do believe that this is the week that I cook home-grown kale.
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