Relentless Inquiry

Tonight on Snail Patrol, I was able to peer below the previously impenetrable beet canopy, now much denuded by my harvesting. Sure enough, I found a ginormous slug the size of a baby carrot and dispatched the critter, as well as a tiny snail or two. An overcanopy of squash leaves has been forming in the beet bed, arching 18 – 24 inches into the air, and shading out the remaining beets. Another unfortunate result is that my poor 'yellow submarine' cucumbers (I couldn't resist) are getting very little light and are basically sulking, rather than spindling up to reach the photons. The beets will be harvested soon, and the squash reign supreme. I shall investigate whether the cukes can be transplanted, though I suspect they've rooted significantly already.

In another garden bed, sprouting potatoes and a kabocha pumpkin vine, invigorated by the recent hot weather, have intertwingled in a rambling territorial battle for the back fence area. I hadn't known until yesterday, reading a lovely coffeetable book called The Compleat Squash, that most squashes prefer daytime 80's-plus and nighttime 60's (or at least, no lower). They are moving out quickly, and claiming all sorts of territory that I had thought would remain open and useable.

Meanwhile, the nasturtiums in both sunny locations at either end of the garden have used the colder spring weather to their advantage and completely crowded out the poor Munstead, Hidecote, and G(something) lavenders that I put in as 4-inch pots. Some of the nasturtium is actually *vining*, which is not a habit I associate with nasturtiums, nor factored into my garden planning. They were supposed to form a pleasant clump next to the pleasant clump of lavender. Instead there are small straggly “lavenderettes” and a green wave with orange, red, and crimson spangles, caught in slow motion as it rushes up a tanbark beachhead into the footpath. It is densely tangled, and covers a shocking amount of ground. The garden has transformed from a well-tended park and exhibition into a minor jungle, only in parts, but the parts are converging. There are more and more places into which I cannot see.

My garden is not turning into a mysterious and uncontrolled wasteland. It is merely revealing the mysterious and uncontrolled wasteland which was always extant, but cloaked by the illusion of stewardship. When plants are tiny and spaced well apart, enclosed by small cages of supporting wire and nurturing blankets of greenhouse fabric, one believes that one has created a microcosm of order, a recapitulation of the myths of the ages. One stands back, feeling accomplishment and pride, and waits for growth.

Growth comes. With it comes decay, overextension, misdirection, and more growth. Plants merge together, tangle into one another. Leaves sprout holes or spots. Creatures appear fleetingly and disappear. Blossoms come and go. Fruit appears almost magically, but sometimes drops, or is plucked proudly until one notices a dark spot and inhabiting worm. The defects, deficiencies, and changes become an endless list of dx/dt from the idealized state of perfection one imagined at planting time, and yet also an endless fascination. How little we control, even in our own backyard.

Indeed, creation and control are not paired concepts. I set in motion a tiny worldlet in what was once a barren desert of unwatered, cracked clay-dirt, unchanged for most of 4 years. I gave it a loose structure, and environment and inclination did the rest. Now I'm struggling to catch up as things move, change, overshadow each other, and generally act like the independent entities they are. It's always “interesting times” in the garden.

I wonder if all of the fundamentalists who liken Deity to a gardener really understand what it's like to have a garden? Am I 'all-powerful' in it? That depends. I can destroy any of the plants, uncreate my creation, yet even the detritus will be changed from what came before it. But can I heal it, shape it, make it do what I want it to do? No, not remotely. They might argue that having that quality is what separates the supernatural from the natural. As for myself, I have a bit more patience now with the class of fiction that has as its premise “Deity/ies created the world, and there was an oops, but they can't fix it directly, so it's up to their creations to struggle along themselves”. Not realistic? Ask a gardener. Been there, doing that… and yet we love it, and won't give it up, even for a season.