What would you grow if you had a garden?

You have to know my husband is an engineer. Numbers and geography are his forte. He sees graphs in his dreams. Excel spreadsheets make him salivate. That tomato plant referenced here he put in the side yard. He drew up a chart for watering. As the tomato grew, he would document the progress on his spreadsheet. I just wanted one tomato to be big enough to pluck from the vine and slice for my sandwich (an ideal tomato sandwich should be on white bread [Wonder by Hostess, if you can find it], with mayonnaise [Hellman’s in the East, Best Foods in the West – same product – different brand], salt and pepper. That’s it.) He designed a watering can out of a milk jug (I wish I still had a picture of it for you) and instructed me on its use. I was faithful to water my tomato plant. I put on my gardening gloves (purple with lavender flowers) and pulled dandelions and other weeds. He mowed. I bagged.

He built this enormous raised bed planter in the backyard on our rental property. It was too big. He loves me though. He’s always showing it. He knows what I seek and he seeks to provide. It’s symbiotic really. We filled that planter with potting soil and local dirt. We tried to grow things. I despaired of ever growing the “right” things. I love him for his efforts. He listens to me but it wasn’t meant to be. That would come later… In Fairbanks, Alaska, for my birthday, I got the best gift.

My birthday is in February. Nothing grows in February. My love brought me downstairs and showed me this device he had built – a garden with a grow light. He built it out of PVC and lamps and little plastic pots and a container for the pots. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He crafted it in the basement of the house we were renting. We went to the store and I immediately snatched up seeds – lavender, thyme, rosemary – I figured that would be a good start. I really should have done better research. I read the seed packets. I knew what I would see – or so I thought. Thyme actually was the most successful of my “weeds” because my husband also happens to be an excellent cook. I monitored my little plants and when one of them sprang up I was so excited. He cut them and made food and seasoned the food with my bits of grass. I’ll never be sure of what we were eating. I was convinced it was rosemary but he insisted it was thyme. No matter. I was hooked.