March 14, 2005

Tales From The Crib

Guerrilla gardening with the girls

Jennifer Margulis

While my friends and family back East are weathering snow storm after snow storm, we're enjoying sunny skies and T-shirt temperatures here in Ashland. The early spring reminds me of last year's growing season.

"Mommy, can we plant this?" Four-year-old Hesperus asked, holding up a mushy brown banana seed. Three-year-old Athena was carefully laying aside every seed from her cucumber slice. We lived in New England where the winters were brutal, the mosquitoes aggressive, and the summers short. But I looked at my daughters' eager faces and decided that it didn't matter that since Hesperus was born I had actually managed to kill both our painstakingly cultivated bonsai and hardiest houseplants.

Neglect and bad soil beware, my girls and I would plant a garden.

Our first stop was the garden shop. Hesperus and Athena were so excited that they pulled me through the parking lot, the baby bumping along in his backpack. We loaded up on tomato plants, basil, kale, organic compost to enhance the soil, and bags of sand for our new sandbox turtle.

Back at home, I plopped the baby on the ground and handed each girl a trowel. Athena started digging deep holes in the lawn and Hesperus danced around singing, "I'm the garden fairy, I'm the garden fair-ee." Turning up the soil, I uncovered a writhing pink worm.

"What's that?" Athena cupped the worm in her hand as lovingly as she rocked her favorite stuffies. "I'm going to keep it forever," she sighed. Hesperus stopped twirling. "I want a worm too! I want a worm too!" I pried loose a rock and turned it over. Underneath was a shiny slug.

"Worms good," I said, "they help aerate the soil and make the plants grow. Slugs bad. They eat the vegetables." I tried to hurl the slug out of the yard. It landed in the wading pool.

"Here," Athena gave Hesperus her worm and raced to rescue the slug. In my green thumb days in Atlanta an army of slimy invertebrates ate through my entire garden overnight. Thus began a protracted War Against Slugs, which I finally won. Though I've enjoyed escargot with garlic and butter, since that summer I cannot stand the sight of slugs.

"I like him Mommy," Athena said. "I'm going to keep him."

"Gross," said Hesperus, whirling her worm in the air. "Slimy."

"Handle each plant gently," the clerk at the store had advised, "so you don't disturb the roots." Putting her worm back in the soil (after much cajoling, pleading, and scolding from me), Hesperus yanked a tomato plant out of its plastic casing so hard that she fell over backwards.

Watering the plants was their favorite part. By the time Athena was done filling a bottle of water by standing on a chair at the sink, there was enough on the floor to swim in. Hesperus used a little plastic watering can to irrigate herself, the vegetables, and her baby brother.

Our garden was finally planted: rather limp and yellowing kale plants flopped in a row; perky green basil stood by the cages we put around each haphazardly positioned tomato plant.

Then we promptly forgot about our foray into homesteading and neglected the garden for weeks. A resident groundhog nibbled the basil. The slugs ate holes in the kale, which became difficult to distinguish from the overgrown grass and skunk cabbage. But the sun and rain worked Mother Nature's miracles for us. By late summer bright red cherry tomatoes cascaded off the plants like jewels in the unruly hair of a goddess. Heirloom tomatoes grew as big as boats and split down the middle. They were sweet and flavorful and delicious.

One evening I was stirring fresh pasta sauce in the kitchen.

"Who wants to pick some basil?" I asked. The baby banged on an upturned pot with a spoon and drooled.

"I do!" Hesperus sang out.

"Me too!" cried Athena.

They came back with a bunch of dirty basil leaves and sprinted outside again. I watched through the bay window as Athena popped a cherry tomato in her mouth, juice and seeds spurting everywhere. Hesperus took big bites of a sun-warmed heirloom as if eating an apple. Then they pried the top off the turtle to play in the sand and swat mosquitoes.

Jennifer Margulis is the editor and co-author of the award-winning anthology, "Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent Tiny People We Love" (Seal Press).