I’ve had an unexpected professional development opportunity this summer—apprenticing with my beloved, elderly neighbor in her garden!
This spring, Ms V, who was born in the 1920s, asked my partner and I for help buying seeds and bulbs and soil, desirous for the garden she’d had before old age limited the movements needed to plant and weed and water. Her daddy always had a garden, and his harvest would feed the family and the neighbors.
Ms V lives on the same land where her daddy planted his tomatoes and corn, the same land that grows veggies and flowers once again. But this time, my partner and I are the ones yanking weeds from the ground and swelling with pride at Ms V’s praise if they emerge root intact.
She must supervise, as I am not a gardener. I do not know ragweed from a dahlia.
Ms V, leaning forward on her walker, shows us to use the hoe to drag dirt over pole bean and queen sweet corn seeds, carve holes to tuck cucumber and tomato plants. We replant pea shoots that surface too close together. The planting is stretched out. We start with the seeds and bulbs, hard-sought dahlia bulbs finally buried. Then, realizing that the garden is truly taking shape, Ms V and I go shopping again. The cucumber plants take a third trip.
I admit, I haven’t weeded as much as I should. Ms V says it’s okay but that after a good rain, we’ll have to weed in earnest.
Central North Carolina is parched from drought, so my sun hat and I tug Ms V’s hose out every other day to drench the dirt. Ms V, with her walker and straw hat, supports herself on a handrail as she yanks at any weeds within reach. She declines the hose water I offer to rinse the dirt from her slim fingers.
Ms V gestures eagerly at the green tomatoes hanging lightly on the vine and tells me her plans to fry them once they’re a little bigger. She chuckles at a green pepper, still small on the vine, and says she’s been picking them too early, so eager she is to eat them. Sometimes Ms V points at buds that I cannot see, her informed eyes better able than mine to detect when a bud is emerging.
Of course, we’re not the only animals in the dirt. Ant bites mark my ankles, and a nibbled stalk prompts Ms V to declare, “Someone is eating that corn!” A Carolina wren gives herself a dustbath under the pecan tree. Ms V calls my attention to two strange-looking bugs on some plant that I have yet to identity.
Sometimes Ms V lingers outside with me until I finish watering. “Did you get that one?” she asks. “Oh no, I forgot!” I sometimes say.
Other times, she declares it’s too hot, cautiously steps over the hose, and climbs the steps inside. Once, after returning to the cool of the AC, she navigated down the stairs one more to tell me I’d been in the sun too long. I dutifully climbed the steps behind her.
Before I leave, I pull up the weather app on my phone-computer (as Ms V calls it) and say, “It might rain tomorrow.” “They always be saying that,” she replies equanimously.
I’m currently asking around for moss. Ms V says it helps the plants retain water.
The garden is a humbling place, but Ms V is a gentle teacher and I am a grateful apprentice.
EDIT: Since writing this post, the universe has blessed us with the much-needed rain. Ms V, my partner, and I celebrated together.