A Time to Reap...

It's intriguing, just how intensely seemingly inconsequential childhood (and adulthood, for that matter) experiences can influence what most fulfills, enriches, and brings us joy in life.

I'm in the middle of taking a five day vacation, devoted entirely to getting the front yard, back forty, and veggie and flower/perennial gardens in order. Raking, pruning like a madwoman, deep-digging yard after square yard of soil, watering, installing a small pond with fountains and two tier-fountained birdbaths, and planting more seeds than Carter has liver pills... all are tasks I'm happily undertaking from dawn to dusk these few days past. And I'm loving every back-breaking minute of it. At first light, I'm like a kid on Christmas, hurrrying outside to see what seedlings have emerged and what progress yesterday's youngsters have made. At dusk, I wile away a delicious couple of hours each night watching the phenomenal Texas sunsets, captivated by the heat lightning displays as night falls and listening to the song "How Great Thou Art" in my head and the lullabye of trickling water in the pond and fountains. The aroma of freshly dug and watered richly fertile soil is an intoxicating perfume for me, even as my eyelids grow heavy from the labor it required to get to this magical spiritual place. In that oasis, all troubles float away and absolutely nothing else matters, save the wealth of input with which my senses are gifting me. Soon there will be glorious hues to behold everywhere, and the beauty of the birds, hummers, butterflies, and bees my bumper crop of marigolds, morning glories, four-o-clocks, daisies, canna, and flowering groundcover gardens will invite to frolick within. Soon, too, will there be the added delight of decorative guords, ornamental maize corn, pumpkins of all sizes, summer and winter squash, cucumbers, zucchini, beefstake and cherry tomatoes, and swiss chard ripening to a lucious finale, each awaiting their place on my dinner table or in canning jars tucked away for the coming autumn and winter months. Some won't even make it to my kitchen, for I'll surely, as I've always done in seasons past, pluck a few directly from the vine, salt shaker in hand.

As with nearly every single one of my passions ~ and Lord knows they are many in number ~ my love of gardening and landscaping finds its origins in a momentous childhood experience. It grew, quite literally, from a single sown seed... a science project in which I participated with rapt fascination in the first grade.

Our teacher, God bless her dear soul, was huge on "hands on" learning... and more enthusiastic still about sharing her love of all things nature with her liliputian charges. One May day, she arrived in our classroom laden with an armload of flourescent lights, paper Dixie cups, potting soil, tiny watering cans, and... wonder of wonders... several packets of bean seeds. Yup ~ plain old, nuttin'-fancy-schmancy-at-the-moment-but-you-just-wait-and-see-what-happens lima bean seeds. Big, fat ones. One for each of we students, with a few to spare in the event of accidents, misfortunes, and assorted false starts for which children of that age group are famous.

First, we spread out newspapers on our desks to render clean-up efforts less extensive later. Then we carefully pushed four holes in the bottom of our Dixie cup with our fat, first grade pencil tips and filled the cups 3/4 full with potting soil. Once this was done, Teacher showed us how to plant our bean seed one inch deep, with the eye pointed downward. She explained that from the eye, the very first tap root would emerge, and that is why it was important that ot be aimed downward into the soil. Most of my classmates took moderate degrees of interest in that fact... I found it absoluting fascinating.

We crayoned our names on our cups, placed them on lunch trays in the window sill near the florescent lights, and awaited our turn to water our project. After cleaning up our desks and disposing of leftover sheets of newspaper and associated spillage, Teacher told us all about how the planted seeds absorb water, how this triggers them to make baby plants, and how the plants lift their heads from the earth to greet the light. She told us about photosynthesis and about how plants return fresh oxygen to the atmosphere around them, and she taught us about how the baby plants grow, mature, bear flower or fruit, and make seeds of their own so that the cycle may continue, unbroken, with the coming of the next spring. I was enthralled...

...so much so that I came home to Mama chattering like a magpie about my baby seed getting ready to "get born", and could barely get to sleep when bedtime came because I was so excited to get back to school the next morning to see what had happened in my cup overnight.

Teacher was wise in many ways, not the least of which was her phenomenal insight into first-graders' "need for speed" when it comes to coping with anticipation and waiting for things to happen. Hence, her selection of the fast-emerging lima bean for us to "parent". Just before leaving school that second day, I noticed something was happening... a tiny little bulge had appeared in the soil's surface! By the end of Day Three, I was ecstatic to see that a stem had lifted up my bean, now swollen to fully twice its size when I'd planted it and splitting in half to reveal two perfect leaves nestled within!

The days of course passed, each bringing new, positively thrilling developments as we watched our plants grow. Then one day, school was out for the year and I joyfully brought my bean plant home to transplant into a tiny patch I'd dug in the back yard. I eventually harvested five whole pods from that plant ~ and no lima bean since has ever tasted more delicious that the ones to be found in those precious five pods.

Five decades hence, the memory of that first grade planting day... and all the magical post-planting days ensuing... shines as brilliantly vivid in my mind's eye as it was when I experienced it. The classroom adventure ignited a passion that will forever course through my veins... one which bestows more inner peace, joy, and serenity than mere words can describe.

Thank you, Miss Hill... thank you, always and forever, from the bottom of a gardener's heart.