This month we have Arlene Bernstein, author of growing season, Life Lessons from the Garden with some enlightening philosophy of gardening. She, along with her husband Michael, was an early Napa Valley vineyard and winery pioneer on Mount Veeder. 

Thoughts from Early May
2004 by Arlene Bernstein

It’s a gentle spring morning, with a slight breeze and hazy sunshine.  I see the volunteer red poppies swaying from out my office window. They draw me outside to fill me with the nourishment from all that grows and prospers on the land I tend.  My pathway from the house is ablaze in yellow, red, white and lavender blossoms. I stop to water the seedlings in my makeshift nursery, artichokes I’ve divided into pots or new sprouts started from seeds a friend brought from Italy, tomatoes from seed, not quite large enough to plant out, way too many for me, so I will give them to my friends, wild strawberries that volunteered in the tomato seedbed, and flowers, some whose destination I have planned, others I will have to find a place for, any place where there’s room, because I want them in bouquets in my home and office, even if they look like party crashers where I put them in the ground.

Yesterday I began putting drip irrigation in newly built raised beds in the vegetable garden.  They have welded wire bottoms to discourage the gophers. I’ve given up on protecting plants from gophers. They  are smarter than I !   I see that the melons and tomatoes and peppers already planted are happy, their thirst quenched .  The green bean seedlings are unfolding, their new leaves like stretching arms when one first wakes up in the morning.  The garden is poised between yielding up its harvest of cool weather vegetables and the promise of summer’s bounty:  the last of the fava beans and artichokes, the abundance of asparagus, the hints  of  melons, tomatoes, peppers and  eggplants to come.  I even see that the lettuce seedlings I transplanted on a hot day this past weekend because the moon was almost full have settled in and recovered from the shock.  I have learned to trust nature’s timing and wisdom.

And I have learned, as the old Spanish proverb goes, “More in the garden grows that what the gardener sows.”    We don’t often realize that as we grow our gardens, our gardens are growing us.  My garden and I have been in a constant dialogue since a cold rainy January morning more than thirty years ago, when I asked a question born out of desperation, “What do you have to offer me in the way of nourishment?”  I was looking at a neglected drowning tangle which reflected the state of my soul. It answered, “Hot Soup!” And to my amazement, when I was able to look again at what was right in front of me, all that I needed was there; I just needed to see it differently. 

Take the asparagus, for example.  I had planted some seeds in an old fruit crate and when they went dormant I put the small crowns in some rich humus in an out of the way place, not really believing those stringy pathetic rootlets had any life in them.  All winter and early spring I poked around under ground, decapitating some, discovering only three.  But I had planted fifty seven!  In time, as the weather warmed, more and more poked their heads up to meet the sun.

"Where is your faith, your patience?" they ask me. "Just because all you saw was a seed or a stringy root crown doesn't mean that's all there is.  It was only a stage in our development.  You were so worried that your efforts would go to waste.  But you weren't the one controlling our growth.  It is the sun and the air and the earth and the water that are unfolding us. Some plants make showy blooms in a very short season; others grow very slowly. Our first efforts only hint at what maturity will bring.

"Be patient with us slow starters. Be patient with yourself, too.  Trust the seeds sleeping deep inside.  They shivered through stark, cold weather, drenched in winter's tears.  But because of that very moisture, when the warm sun reaches them they will be pulled magnetically until they burst through to air and light.  Our seeds become asparagus, but yours- you will have to learn from listening deep within what will germinate and grow for you."

As I began to slow down and become attentive, something wonderful happened.  Here is an the account of the first time I planted from this new attitude:

I am like the calligrapher who must first meditatively grind his ink before making the deft sure stroke with brush or pen on the blank white sheet.  My medium is earth.  My preparation is to gently crumble the clods between my palms, lightening the texture so it will welcomingly receive the seeds.  Some places need more moisture, others more time.  Still others ask for a top dressing of compost to lighten the tilth.   I do not have a plan.  I panic with anxiety for a moment. Where do I start?  "Stay calm and attentive," the earth assures me.  "You needn't impose a plan; it will emerge."  I relax.  Stand still.  Breathe deeply. I let in the sensations of the sunshine bathing my skin, the sounds of busy insects buzzing, the perfume of the waxy white lime blossoms, and the solidity of the earth beneath my feet.  And soon, like a magnet, I feel pulled first to one spot, then another.  Tomatoes near the lime tree.  Of course!  Squash next to the fence.  Garlic near the lettuce.  Beans next to the strawberries.  It's as if each plant knows its best home and just has to lead me to it. I am merely the vehicle.

Arlene Bernstein, author of Growing Season, Life Lessons from the Garden.
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