One of the early features of this pandemic, remote learning, and lockdown was an across the board interest in home gardening. Whether to relieve personal boredom, occupy children, save on the grocery bill, or simply because we have more unstructured time, people have flocked to gardening this spring and summer. I grew up with gardening -- and when I say "gardening," I mean large plot in the backyard, much larger community garden plot requiring frequent after dinner and weekend visits, plus other produce by the bushel from the farmers market, leading to an enormous freezer full of fruit and veg and shelves of canned goods. I never had to worry about BPA lined cans, since pretty much everything I ate came from a Mason jar! My mother and my aunt once had a summer project where they took over the empty plot next door and raised 2,000 strawberry plants; that's the kind of gardening history I come from.
Not surprisingly, I've always had at least an herb bed and a few tomato plants, even in the years when having young children kept me from real gardening. In the past ten years, I've expanded to raised beds, with some years more successful than others -- but always a plethora of green beans and fantastic sunflowers. Depending on the summer, I've had enough green beans from my little city plot to freeze, and sunflowers that attracted butterflies and goldfinches galore. Oddly, I can't seem to grow zucchini, which makes me feel like I'm not a "real" gardener, no matter my other levels of success.
One of the consequences of my upbringing in the garden -- daily tasks of planting, thinning, weeding, watering, harvesting, plus corn husking, cherry pitting, bean snapping, and apple coring -- was that I didn't put a whole lot of pressure on my own children to help. While they all know a weed from a bean plant, and how to shovel dirt, no one really exhibited a great interest in the garden. Until now.
Our Linnea needs to fill her time, so as not to drive herself (us) crazy. She is a hard worker, and has done landscape work in the past, along with various other jobs. Come April this year, already bored at home, we hear this:
"I'm so excited about gardening this year!! We have all these great beds, and we've done it before, and you love gardening, Mom! It's going to be great! I have it all planned out. Now, where do you get plants? Do you use seeds? When can we start? Isn't this awesome? I'm so excited!"
"It's a little early to plant in Minnesota, but you can start getting the beds ready."
"Too early to plant? Really? Why? What do you mean by get the beds ready? Can we plant soon? I want to get started!"
"Not before Mother's Day, Memorial Day is better."
"What?!?!?"
Honestly, why is April too early to plant in MN? Did she not grow up here?
"Okay, Mom, here's the list, how do we get this stuff?"
"I think you'll need to do curbside pickup -- send an email with your list, they will call you."
Later . . .
"And I'd like two basil plants. . . you're out of basil? Spinach seeds? No? What about cucumber plants? No? Maybe next week? Sunflower Seeds? Okay, I'll take the one pack . . ."
"Mom! They don't have ANYTHING!"
"You know, I've heard everyone is gardening . . ."
"Yeah, that's great, but we ALWAYS garden!! We should be able to get our stuff! At least we'll for sure get the sunflower seeds, plus Grammy gave me her seeds for giant sunflowers, I'm going to put those all along the back fence. This is going to be so fun!"
A couple of weeks later, with plenty of help from the family -- everyone was bored after all -- the gardens were planted (closer to Mother's Day than Memorial Day, because, Linnea) and the seedling watch began.
"Are the sunflowers up yet? Did you look? I'll go look! No, not yet."
"What about today? Any seedlings? No? Sigh."
"MOM!!! Sunflowers!! Come look!! This is so great!! Look,there's one there, and two there, and the giant sunflowers are up in the back, too! I'm so excited! Grammy says they grow fast, they'll be a foot tall in a month!"
The next day. . .
"Huh. I thought there was a seedling there. And there. Where did they go? There are a few more popping up, but some are missing."
"Hmm . . . well, Linnea, I think something ate them."
"What? Who would eat my sunflowers?"
"The rabbits."
"I don't think so. They are not getting my sunflowers."
Right.
Give her credit, over the next six weeks, Linnea replanted the front yard variety pack of sunflower seeds twice, and the back yard giant sunflowers three times. She fixed fencing, covered seedlings with cups overnight, covered seedlings with cups during the day, chased rabbits, looked up rabbit repellent recipes, stood over those sunflowers like a sentinel, to no avail. The rabbits have won. Year after year, we have enjoyed our garden filled with sunflowers. This year, not one sunflower survived the wildlife. Linnea is crushed, and spiteful towards rabbits.
Last week . . .
"Hey, Linnea, I think there is a cat in the back yard, stalking a rabbit. Want to watch and see what happens?"
"You better believe I want to watch!! That cat better get that rabbit! I want to see it bite off its head!!" (Spiteful? Vengeful?)
"There is goes . . . is that cat going to get the rabbit?"
Nope. Rabbit wins that round.
By the way . . . they ate most of my green beans, too. Sigh.
