Second Garden

When we moved into a Real House™ this past March, I knew I needed to plant a garden. This felt like the only adequate response to years of reading Wendell Berry, the natural king and farmer from Kentucky. One can only read so many books about the devastations of industrialized farming before doing something practical. It was time to dig my hands in the dirt and plant some dang veggies.

Peppers, beets, spinach, squash, and of course basil were sewn lovingly in the ground by Lillian & I. We scavenged some cement bricks to border our raised bed, and even used compost I’d made the previous month. Lillian had successfully planted gardens before, so she was in charge. I was the one churning up the soil, depositing my forehead sweat into the earth, endlessly complaining about Big Food all the while. It felt good to get to know the soil and have the soil know me; to reject the passive helplessness I’ve inherited from modern living and become an honest to God man.

After two weeks, the plants were sprouting, and my agrarian dream was becoming more and more real. Who said you couldn’t feed your family from your own land? (actually my landlord’s land… and my landlord is my dad). I’d go out a few times a day in my metaphorical overalls, surveying my land (backyard), making sure my farm was running swimmingly. That my 4’x4’ garden box was getting the water and love it needed. With pride deep in my soul and hope in my gut, I almost forgot about every farmer’s greatest fear: the rain.

And the rain did indeed come, and for a full week with no sun. It ravaged my little tiny beautiful baby plants. The land (garden box) was barren. But it was only June and I wasn’t ready to give up just then. I started scheming a second garden.

My day job is managing a skatepark—it’s outdoors with lots of light and no trees. A seemingly random patch of dirt existed next to the mini-ramp, God knows why. And this is why: so that I, Andrew Tyson, would plant my second garden there in the year of 2025. I reconstructed a wooden pallet I found under the mini-ramp into a garden box, and placed it on that patch of dirt. The second garden was underway.

So I tried again: rosemary, lavender, parsley, and of course basil, planted lovingly amongst flying skateboards and adolescent mania. I wasn’t allowed to plant vegetables because my boss dreaded the liabilities of a child getting food poisoning from a rogue tomato, but nonetheless, I was happy to grow anything.

I was also told by my employees not to get my hopes up. They thought the kids at the skatepark would intentionally destroy my garden. My boss shared this sentiment and almost shut the whole garden thing down, but I stood my ground and said I thought it was a good idea even if it got destroyed. Being no stranger to a failed garden, I was ready for any outcome.

Thankfully, my coworkers were wrong and the garden has been quietly respected or ignored for all I know. I, at least, find great joy in checking on it daily. One of the parents  noticed my garden and brought a bunch more basil, marigolds and even a banned plant—don’t tell my boss—there is a tomato plant in the garden now (you gotta live on the edge sometimes). Suffice to say this has been my joy at work. Having my little garden.

I haven’t been able to feed my family exclusively from the work of my hands, but I’ve only planted two gardens. Who knows what will come of the third. The only plant that produced exceedingly well was basil… figures. When life gives you Basil, you plant a garden. When your garden gives you basil, you make pesto.