Volunteers
(or, when the work you do seeds itself)
A year ago, we worked with our friend and neighbor Daniel to build a garden. He used scrap wood cut from fallen oak trees to build six large beds, some smaller side beds, and a tall fence. The girls and I painted the fence with leftover house paint, and we filled the beds with a mixture of topsoil and compost. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, greens, okra, squash, marigolds, nasturtiums, and lettuce, then we gathered some large stones from the woods and surrounded one side with a flower bed, where we sowed zinnias, sunflowers, and cosmos.
It was a tidy, productive, beautiful garden with around forty high-producing tomato plants. All season, we ate (and gave away) home-grown tomatoes. Grampa Boggs and Grandpa Allen were still alive, and Donald Trump was not the president.
A year later, Daniel has moved away and we’re taking care of garden by ourselves (he has a new and awesome garden in Creedmoor). The makeshift trellises that were straight are leaning precariously, and wood sorrel fills some of the beds because I neglected to plant cover crop. You know about the political insanity, and the losses.
But, on our kitchen shelves and windowsills and on our deck are cups of seedlings: six kinds of tomatoes (last year we grew four), some new watermelon and pepper varieties, cucumbers for pickling and slicing. In the garden soil are kale, spinach, lettuces, herbs, and peas and beans. We planted new zinnias and sunflowers, and ten bare-root strawberry plants from Asheville’s Sow True Seeds.
Compared to last year, the garden looks a bit of a mess, with the leaning trellises and weedy soil and muddy paths. But everywhere, now that it’s a little warmer, I’m seeing surprise plants: volunteers sprouting from seeds that self-sowed last year. Volunteer parsley, more beautiful than any organic bunch at the store! Volunteer cilantro, tender and delicious! Volunteer tomato plants and mystery gourds!
The promise that some growth happens while you’re not looking—or that some work you do now will seed itself in the future—is keeping me going.
That, and seeing Clapping Hands Farm and other community groups at Clyde Fest today (the girls celebrated Clyde Jones’s birthday with him during spring break camp).
And volunteering to do Haw River cleanup with Harriet’s scout troop—the banks were pretty clean because of a recent cleanup (thanks, volunteers!), but we did collect a lot of fishing line.
And getting ready for the AAUP National Day of Action for Higher Ed this week. Our NC State chapter is hosting an op-ed writing for faculty workshop (with my friends Cat and Madhu) from 4-5:30 PM at Hill Library. (Email me if you’re a faculty member and want to join us!)
And watching the amazing NC storyteller Donna Washington tell spooky stories last night at Bynum General Store.
Watch her very creepy Boo Hag (our favorite from last night) here.
How about you, Frog Troublers? Any volunteers helping in your life? What’s keeping you going?
Love the analogy and the reality of volunteers. And the notion that ground that seems fallow at one moment will be teeming with unexpected and tender starts.
Your garden looks wonderful, Belle. It's a good thing you are vegetarian. BTW I've gotten 4 Ball jars from food that friends gave us recently. May I send them to you via Richard?
Sheila