I have an experimental garden. It is roughly the shape of
one of those idiotically dangerous trampolines you see in the yards of every otherwise
obsessively cautious parent these days. Fortunately our trampoline did not
claim any victims. We were among the lucky ones, and I relished the clanging
sound of tubular steel being tossed into the back of a garbage truck the day it
was finally hauled away.
What remained were pleasant memories and a large circular burned
out spot on our back lawn. If Google had timed it right and updated the aerial
photographs of our neighborhood it would have appeared like a crop circle or a
large letter “O.” Well-placed pumpkins and a semicircular row of beans would
have created a smiley face worthy of Forest Gump when viewed from the air.
I decided that half the work of creating a vegetable garden
had been completed by the trampoline. All I had to do was turn over the topsoil
with a shovel and water the Earth with the sweat of my brow. Lots of sweat. The
area was loaded with rocks and crisscrossed with tree roots from Pines and
Oaks. Only about two inches of rich black topsoil had supported the layer of
grass we enjoyed prior to installation of the heat-focusing trampoline bed. Beneath that
was clay and sand, a testimonial to the river-bed nature of ground conditions
two blocks away from the mighty Des Plaines. In other words, the dirt was crap.
I began to add things; “amend” as the professionals would say. Peat moss, mushroom
compost and manure. I even rented a very fun rototiller and discovered a
deeper layer of tree roots that caused the machine to kick and buck. I brought
out an axe and a wheelbarrow to cut and haul the underworld cartilage. A week later I planted my crops.
I’ll just cut to the chase. It didn’t work. My vegetable
garden yielded six tomatoes, five beans and a handful of lettuce. I now have
profound respect and admiration for the farmers who grow our food and for the
abundance and variety of beautiful items in the produce section at Dominicks.
So I tried something else this year.
I went online and bought a pound of zinnia seeds. I can grow
these. Each year for the past half dozen, butterflies and neighborhood children
stop to worship the colorful display I cultivate near our streetside mailbox.
Zinnias require little care other than periodic watering and pruning that
causes even more zinnias to bloom.
“Can we go see Mr. Vic’s garden?” ask the kiddies.
“Yes you can dear,” say their mothers. “He’s a genius with a green thumb.”
If you’ve ever purchased a packet of zinnia seeds, you know
that for $1.79 you get about two dozen lighter-than-air disclike seeds in the
bottom of a paper packet. A pound of these “California Giants” is enough for
Vincent Van Gogh to scatter over acres of land in preparation for painting a
masterpiece if he chose to repeat the giant sunflower experiment. I used half a pound
in my trampoline garden.
That was May. I planted the seeds in two waves so as not to
overwhelm neighbors or low flying aircraft with the explosion of color that
would burst skyward at ground zero. Google, prepare for something spectacular!
This is the time for an update.
Well, I’m writing this in August, so you can imagine what
I’m dealing with after ten weeks of unrestrained growth. Daily harvests of
bouquets for my wife. Requests by artists to set up easels and chairs for the
day while they paint. The photojournalists with their annoying clicking
shutters and the legal contracts that Ken Burns insists upon before panning and
zooming to the sound of harmonicas and the droning of a vaguely familiar
narrative voice. Yeah, none of that.
For all my planning and dreaming, I never expected this. See
the photograph below. I took it myself. Click for a larger, more stunning view.
