Recently a friend recommended a documentary film: Kiss the Ground. Apparently, it’s available on Netflix. I watched the trailer - https://kissthegroundmovie.com/ It’s about how we can affect the earth in positive ways by how we grow things.
It made me think about my experience with gardens.
Although we lived in an apartment in Kiel, Germany, my
parents rented a garden plot on the edge of the city, as did my grandfather. There’s
a long tradition of this in many cities in Germany. Sometimes people own the
land and pass it down through the family; in other cases they rent a plot. In
large cities like Berlin, which has grown every larger, there are garden plot
sections within the city scattered here and there from when the edge of the
city was different than it is now.
My father trained to become a Gärtner – literal translation
gardener – he worked as a landscaper in cities.
My parents had no car, so they used to bike out into the
country. I have clear memories of riding on my father’s bike with him (a front
side saddle) out to the garden. I’m sure he grew cabbages and potatoes – those were
staples in our household – but I mainly remember the sweet yellow plums that
grew in the neighbouring plot and leaned over a little into ours. Sometimes I
was allowed to eat a couple of those plums.
Years later in Canada, my father worked on farms and the
farmers always had gardens. We probably had plots, too, but I don’t remember
them. Once we moved into town, into our own house, we definitely had a garden
that grew through the years – raspberries, flowers, bushes and trees. We must have
had vegetables, too, but I can’t recall.
After university, marriage and a bit of wandering, I
settled in Saskatoon and almost always had a garden except for the brief periods
when I lived in an apartment.
At times creating a garden meant digging up a dirt driveway
and adding compost every year. Now and then the garden was huge. I was always
adding plants – got raspberry canes from my father, bought strawberry plants.
Moved plants, too, and got some from friends, gave some away. I love perennials
because they are so easy care – many of them require little water, which is an
advantage in a prairies landscape.
I’ve lived in my current house since 1993 – a lot of years
in which to develop a yard and garden. I make adjustments of some kind or
another every year. I’ve gradually removed grass and have more perennials. I
have only one Saskatoon bush now (used to have two), but also raspberries and
strawberries. My gooseberries haven’t done well for a while so this fall I
pruned the bush significantly. If that doesn’t help, I may take the bush out
entirely. I have perennial herbs like tarragon and chives. Lots of flowering
plants including bush roses, peonies, globe flowers, monkshood, lilies, and so
on.
My garden is pretty much organic. I compost.
This fall I put in some paving stones in a shady area where
not much grows well. I’ll put in a few more paving stones next spring and make
a seating area. Take out more grass in another spot. Plant some tomatoes among
the flowers. Plant onions and garlic again (which I haven’t done for a while),
and more herbs. Always carrots and peas. I’m thinking of creating a mini green
house with some old windows that I’ve been saving for years.
I put in more bird feeders and an extra bird bath late this
summer and every morning I enjoy the avian socialization that goes on around
those.
“A garden is a lovesome thing,” wrote Thomas Edward Brown,
and I agree.
