Neglecting Your Garden

This title isn’t all that encouraging, is it? Seems like a recipe for low yield and feelings of failure, incompetent green-thumbery and empty bellies come fall. And yet – there’s something to be appreciated about periods of outward seeming neglect in our lives.

Let me present to you the ever-popular ‘life is a garden’ analogy. Stay with me – the fruits of this labor (see what I did there?) will hopefully yield a different means of viewing the aspects of ourselves and our lives we oft disregard, especially as employment (aka guiding) season takes precedence.

I am a gardener… a novice gardener… a hobby gardener… I love that plants enjoy and are intrinsically designed to grow even when I leave them to fend for themselves for months at a time. That last one is probably the most accurate, and yet – I am still a gardener. Why? Because I try. Because I show up. Because I enjoy it. Because every time a plant grows, that means I grow too.

My relationship with gardens isn’t yet mature – as a child, we had a garden on the hobby farm, but it was never solely my chore, and those memories are so vague I only recall snapping green beans and munching cucumbers. Fast forward quite a number of years, and a guide garden sprouted in Lowell, Idaho next to the Lochsa river, a labor of love (and abandon) as the river season gained traction and life on the dirt road behind Three Rivers dried up after the spring rains. We still generated produce by the end of the season, thanks to the help of Mike Sr. watering and the appreciative glances of guests as they sat in the hot tub next to the growing space. The harvest was so sweet, knowing we had grown it.

Fast forward a couple more years, and BOOM covid. Ah. Yes, I will mention covid. Holed up at my folk’s place, in an anxiety-ridden and frantically fueled existence – I’ll admit, I washed my oranges when I got home from the store. (These are the things you don’t see on social media, my friends!) My stepmom one day handed over a book on straw bale gardening, her silent nudge giving me a hobby that would tire the body and ease the mind.

 That first season, the garden got a lot of care – I set up the space with a fence to deter deer, arranged my composting straw bales in a fun formation, set up a watering system that would turn on automatically with the lawn sprinklers, and purchased more seeds than I needed with my stimulus check. When they arrived, I planted. I set up a growing space inside the laundry room to tend to my tiny seedlings, watching them reach taller and taller, speaking to them and taking them outdoors for a few hours each day when they were ready for full sun exposure. Eventually, they were planted in the bales, potatoes were put in a box planter, and I continued carefully loving them. And then, whammo, river season was back on! And I abandoned the garden. That year when I returned in the fall, I had some yields, some losses, and learned some things.

Cleaning up the space was a chore, and as I tilled the composted straw into the earth, personal reflections came and went. There would be rich soil here someday, in this rocky field I had chosen for my small garden. I planted garlic in the fall, hoping it would take root.

Through the fallow of winter, I thought of my potentials – my possible plantings, not only in the garden but elsewhere. What would I plant? Where would I plant them? How would I manage the seedlings since I wouldn’t be cooped up at my folk’s place this go around? How would they be cared for throughout the summer while I was guiding? Was I going to be guiding at all? How did I want guiding to look and feel coming into this new season? What else did I want to grow in my life? These thoughts and many others helped me get through a tough winter, knowing there was a dream brewing for spring.

 Come springtime, I purchased more straw bales to condition with fertilizer and water, started seedlings in tiny pots under the laundry room grow light, set up the watering hose system, and even added a hoop house for trellising beans. Again, I planted. And again, I abandoned. To put in all the front work, only to leave. My family is busy and doesn’t have the bandwidth for weeding, harvesting, or pest control. Still, plants grew. They grew! Kale as tall as me, chard, peppers, nasturtium, potatoes (last year’s had become my seedling crop, doubling in numbers come harvest), and garlic!! 15 beautiful bulbs. Some plants died or never emerged over the summer of neglect, and some absolutely thrived. Tilling in straw and some additional horse manure and putting the garden to sleep that season left me contented. The soil was becoming a richer, deeper black and I knew better what to do to prepare for next season. I felt grounded here. I planted garlic in the fall, hoping once more it would take root.

In between gardening seasons, I moved towns to start fresh in a new place. Now I was living six hours from the garden space instead of one, so how would a garden work this year? I visited my family in the springtime and went for it anyway. I didn’t buy straw, I didn’t till, I didn’t have time to nurture seedlings to growth. A vague plan for the garden layout was sketched onto some graph paper and posted on my folk’s fridge. I scattered seeds and mulched them with leftover straw that had been rotting in a heap. Three days was all I had to prep and get everything in the ground. My garlic was already showing from its own mound of mulch, silently urging me on. And so, I planted. Or rather, I spread some seeds around. The potatoes went in quick rows, nasturtium seeds flung along the bottom of the hoop house, kale sprinkled haphazardly; the corn was a total who-knows? experiment, the turnip seeds were tossed in between the garlic rows, and I commandeered my sister’s watermelon and tiny pumpkin starts claiming ‘it’ll grow better with space.’ It was chaos, beautiful chaos. And then, abandoned.

 I’ve never had a more successful garden, even though yields weren’t astounding. 30 lb of cute little potatoes, so much kale, beautiful and spicy nasturtiums, heads of corn from my experimental tossings, more massive turnips than I knew what to do with, a beautiful watermelon, tiny pumpkins for my nephew, and garlic. My favorite crop. 40 big, beautiful, potent bulbs. Delightful! And all of these plants, neglected. Each and every one of them.

But were they really? Had I actually neglected my garden completely? Sure, I left for long periods of time, not to be seen or heard from. I returned, though, and was willing to put in the work when I was there. I put in a lot of effort to create the space, to automatically water while I was away, and to protect from curious deer and my sister’s mustang (a glutton for greens, that one). Sure, a lot of plants didn’t make it, my relationships with them fading as they withered in the sunlight. But sometimes, you can’t control outcomes. Sometimes, you just have to accept and let go. Sometimes your turnips are freakin’ huge, and sometimes the carrots you were really hoping for never even sprout.

Sometimes, the abundance comes in ways you never see coming.

 I’ve found that guiding isn’t necessarily conducive to a thriving garden – and that’s ok. Through the practice of gardening and guiding, I have learned that sometimes we need to accept what we can’t control, to have utmost grace and kindness not only for ourselves but for the living beings around us, be they plants or people. Gardening and guiding have shown me the importance of self-care, knowing that when you strive to take care of yourself, the yields of your bountiful relationships are that much sweeter. Gardening and guiding have shared with me the power of patience for others, yes, but particularly for my own growth.

 Sometimes your crops don’t work out, sometimes the outfitter you work for just isn’t right for you, or the schedule of guiding/harvesting doesn’t really jam with your needs, or your relationships wither as you pursue your dreams under the sunlight, or you totally botch the beans you were trying to trellis. And that’s ok. Loving yourself enough to let these things be ok, is ok.

I can’t say this enough – sometimes the abundance comes in ways you never see coming. Giving yourself the compassion to learn and grow is really what it’s all about.

 So – what will you harvest from this season? What lessons are ready to grow with you? What are you ready to leave behind knowing that it isn’t the crop for you? How can you ‘close up your garden’ for the season to ensure you’re preparing for the next one? What seeds do you sow next, what moves will you make to keep yourself growing and perpetuating? How will you allow yourself to lay fallow and rest this winter?

 Ask yourself these questions – because you are a garden. Every year, no matter what, your soil gets richer. You become more fertile with potential. You gain more wisdom and experience. Your development may be incremental, but it is profound. Even when we feel like we’re neglecting aspects of our lives, there is movement, growth, and wisdom hard at work. Plants grow slowly but with intention. Sometimes we can direct the ideas and goals we plant, and sometimes we cannot. Some crops will work, and some will not. Some relationships will flourish, and others will not. But I promise you, you are growing.

 I planted garlic this fall, knowing once again it will take root.

• By Sara Ruth Sweeney