Getting Ready to Break Ground

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My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I plan to plant a vegetable garden this year on a plot nearby that gets plenty of sunshine. Our own yard is filled with trees that make it impossible to grow even tomato plants. We have tried twice. But this plot will be perfect.

We are not planting the vegetables that now can be planted below the surface, such as onions, carrots and potatoes. We have opted for only above-ground plants — tomatoes, peppers, corn, okra, purple-hull peas and squash. That gives me a few weeks to buy some organic fertilizer and rent a tiller to break up the soil. Then it is off to the feed store to buy seeds and plants. My BMC and I are both excited about this project.

The last time I had a full-blown garden — and not simply some tomato and pepper plants in pots or planted along a fence line — was in Lufkin in 1990, when I lived in the country on 12 acres. At the time, I had fond memories of a fine garden I had back in college, also when living in the country outside Nacogdoches. So I planted a ridiculously large garden in our backyard. If it had been successful, it is quite possible most of the city could have had fresh produce that summer. Alas, weeding quickly became old, especially after a long day’s work at the paper. Fire ants ate all the okra. The corn burned up. Bugs and birds kept pecking at the tomatoes before I could pick them. It was an abject failure.

My BMC also had a garden during this time frame, when she lived in Buda and taught elementary school. (This was long before we met.) She has fond memories of living on a sheep farm in a tiny farmhouse, and of the prodigious produce that came from soil she tilled and the plants she cared for. We attended my daughter Meredith’s wedding several years ago and stayed in Buda. One rainy afternoon before the wedding, we drove around in vain looking for that sheep farm. Buda is now an Austin bedroom community, and where sheep once grazed, endless rows of tract houses now stand. My BMC was bummed.

I am willing to try gardening again, since I am married to a woman who actually knows how to care for plants, unlike me. She will tell me what to do, and I will comply. That is a key to a successful marriage. I will rent the tiller and break the ground as directed. An acquaintance of mine, who is an actual farmer and not just playing at it, has offered to provide wheat straw, which keeps the weeds down and further enriches the soil as it breaks down.

Of course, we will put up a scarecrow. A garden would not be complete without one. We are debating what would be the scariest face to put on the scarecrow. I’m thinking about going to the party store and checking out the rubber mask selection. I would use Donald Trump, but I don’t want him tweeting about me. Somebody needs to confiscate that man’s phone.

When I first met my BMC nine years ago this month, her dad and his brother had a huge vegetable garden on land near Texarkana. The produce that came out of that garden was unquestionably the best I have ever tasted: cantaloupe that melted in one’s mouth, sinfully juicy tomatoes, fire-hot jalapeños, and creamy purple-hull peas. Both men are no longer with us, and neither is the garden.

For many years, I have been the fortunate recipient of others’ surplus of produce — readers, neighbors and friends. This year, we hope to pay it forward and grow more than we can use. We hope our crop is bountiful. As long as my BMC is in charge, I like our chances. As I said, I’m just following orders.

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