My Hands in the Earth, a Gardener’s Tale

It hits me every year by late winter: the yearning to break free in a way that often involves finding my way outside to feel the wind blow through me, to feel the earth and to feel alive. Even a cold wind suffices, a wind that doesn’t yet allude to the fresh scent of the soil, of the ground thawing, of everything coming to life. 

Heirloom peonies in our perennial garden, Upstate New York

For the decade that I lived in New York City the restless spirit inside of me couldn’t wait to periodically escape the confinements of city life…for a day, for a weekend, for an annual trip somewhere wild. I needed to breathe fresher air, to see the stars, to grab a shovel, to sink my hands back into the earth…I missed working in the yard, the quiet responsibility of tending a garden that had become so ingrained in me that I wouldn’t realize how much I missed it until it became inaccessible.

For me being barefoot in the grass, helping in the garden, watering the flowers as a young girl all served as a foundation of my childhood, of my self-identity. I vividly recall biting into warm tomatoes planted by parents behind our home on summer evenings while running up and down their hand-painted board and batten hatchway doors to the cellar of our century home. This memory paints a picture of the cared-for environment that my parents created for us.

I remember watering and deadheading my mother’s marigolds, taking care of hanging baskets on the front porch, of slow summer mornings and evenings weeding here and there as we passed the time with a tall glass of homemade sweet tea, a summertime family staple at our home. 

I learned a lot in my young life about slowing down and connecting to the food that we eat. One of my earliest memories of growing our own food must have been picking green beans while sitting atop a bucket in my great-uncle Herb’s vegetable garden behind the house built by him and my grandfather, my Pap. I must have been younger than five, and still that simple garden still sits with me today. 

After we moved a few miles down the road when I was seven into the family farmhouse where my father and grandfather both grew up, I connected to the woods, the field, our pond and creek, and to the many perennials that my grandmother planted a half a century ago. And I began gardening more seriously with my mother. 

The first sights of spring, and I was out cleaning up the garden, edging the wall of daylilies before they had a chance to take off. Because we were the next generations of stewards of the grounds, I learned a lot about garden design. I learned with my mother, creating curves, balance, and placement as she landscaped the gardens that would be etched into my heart all of these years later.  

In time, gardening became a fine art to me, a craft. In many ways, gardening has been a trusted friend as well. On some of the most sorrowful days of my life, I resorted to gardening. In some of the most joyful events of my life, I have also resorted to gardening. The eve before our wedding weekend, I found myself out buying an antique hydrangea, and a whole trunk full of potted plants to add to the floralscape of our wedding reception area. Because, as my mom and I always say, “You can never have too many flowers.”  

And so it is with this context and early formation of my passions for plants: for flowers, for connecting with the food that we eat and the earth beneath us, that I introduce gardening as a passion that I have no doubt will flourish here.