Last year I started a vege garden. It is something I've been playing with for years but was incompatible with owning a dog, even if the Tank was getting on a little. He would still deposit big doggy landmines in the middle of freshly planted seedlings and leave large footprints in freshly toiled soil. So the patch of soil designated had been nurtured for a few years. An apple tree had been planted, had done poorly and never fruited. Some herbs had been attempted but trampled. I'd realised I needed to fence the space but there was always something more financially pressing than fence wire and posts.
But for a couple of reasons last year the vege garden finally became more than a side project and became properly established.
One of these reasons was happy.
One was very sad.
When I started my teaching career with a posting to the regions of WA my boyfriend of 12 months had a job he loved doing with people he loved working with. But after six months of a long distance relationship he packed up his life and moved to the dusty red Midwest to join me with little prospect of finding work in his chosen career. Instead he fell back on the skills he'd derived as a fruit picker in the Perth Hills and worked on plantations tending bananas, grapes and mangoes. I love that he did this to be with me. He made some pretty big sacrifices that most men would have never made. He gambled everything for love and it paid off. This man is now the Husband. Last December we celebrated 10 years of putting up with each others neuroses.
When we came back to Perth he came back to an entry level job in an attempt to re-establish his career. Within six months he'd been promoted up and last year he reached his short term career goal of management. He did something that most people don't do; he applied for promotion whether he though he was ready or not and he moved his way up the food chain. As it turns out other people though he was ready. Now he works for prestigious University doing important customer support work and getting taken seriously. Its a long way from packing mangoes in a hot shed in the middle of summer. I'm pretty proud of him.
So we financially got ahead and we had money to spend on luxuries like manure, fence wire and seedlings. I didn't have to worry about the debt on the credit card before buying a couple of fence poles. I could get some good organic soil improver and still have a few takeaway meals. So the garden was started.
Then came the sad thing.
In August last year I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks. I had a bit of spotting and went for an ultrasound to see what was happening. I knew when we weren't initially shown a heartbeat that things weren't good. When the sonographer wouldn't comment I started to breakdown. Then a doctor told us the thing we were thinking but didn't want to hear. The next hour was a blur as we went from the ultrasound to the obstetrician then to the pathologist. Then we had to tell our family.
I knew my mum would be hit pretty hard. She'd been waiting for second grandchild, patiently in the wings as she does. So we drove the 20 minutes to her office to tell her the bad news.
Then we had to tell the Bright Spark. He'd just turned 3 and knew that mum was growing a baby in her belly. The Husband knew what to say, how to explain it. It just wasn't the perfect baby for us, for our family. We had to keep trying.
So as we progressed emotionally and I recovered physically I needed a distraction. A project to keep me moving and thinking and planning. The garden was it. I planned and I nurtured. I read books and magazines. I started a gardeners journal full of ideas and planting plans. I set goals of summer salads. I harvested and enjoyed the fruits of my labour. I grew seedlings from seed and nurtured then through cool spring. The rain kept coming, the wettest spring in years and everything grew. The apple tree produced flowers and then fruit for the first time in five years. Things grew. I felt pretty clever about the whole thing. Out of our loss came a pretty productive few months of toil. By the end of spring I was pregnant again and had a thriving garden as a response to my grief.
Although the hot summer took it's toll on the garden and the new pregnancy set up a few road blocks to further work, it is still growing. The rats raided the apple tree and took the fruit, so we missed out this year. The zucchini's grew and flowered but never set fruit. The beans were quite prolific and the Bright Spark enjoyed the spreading the drying seeds around the yard in the late summer (we have beans popping up in random places now). The herbs are still producing and I'm loving being able to pick them fresh when ever I need them in the kitchen.
Last week after being given the all clear from my obstetrician to get back to normal duties, I planted a winter crop. Carrots, peas and lettuce seeds are waiting for some more rain to get them going. Kale, broccoli and spinach seedlings have their roots into some rich soil ready to give us all the greens we'll want for winter. I'm hoping to stretch the budget for the week enough to get some leek seedlings and a new dill plant. The garden looks productive again with golden pea straw mulching the newly planted beds.
I'm looking forward to spending warm winter days harvesting and tending the garden with the Bright Spark at my side and my newborn resting quietly in his rocker or being carried in a sling. I know in reality I'll be encouraging the Bright Spark to play elsewhere to stop him from trampling the seedlings and the baby will probably want to feed as soon as I put my hands in the dirt. But most of the hard work for the next few months is now done and I look forward to the fruits of my labour yet again.
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