Illustration by David Norwood
The hardest work many of you will do is putting in your first garden. Do it to know the satisfying ache of muscles in the pursuit of meaning and joy.
It’s hard for us to disturb the robust and green, thick and sacred St. Augustine grass: fertilized and mowed; mowed and fertilized; and watered—oh my, yes—watered, fertilized, mowed, and bagged. We have been taught from childhood that lawn grass is good. To be somebody, one must possess manicured grass.
Never mind that gasoline-powered lawnmowers pollute the air with their fumes and roar. Forget that fertilizer runs off to join blown leaves in the storm drain. Why do we allow people to blow leaves and grass into the streets to clog the drains? But never mind that. God must like a groomed lawn, he made so many of them.
We, gentle gardener, are going to run contrary to that thinking this spring. We’re going to start with a patch of pristine grass that will not place undue strain on our office-adjusted backs and underused upper arms. We are going to awaken shoulder muscles that will cry out in protest. And it will be good.
We will attack this preppy grass as though digging for buried treasure. In less than half an hour, we’ll be breathing hard, soaked with sweat, and, maybe, bleeding. We will strike back at mindless television commercials that have hypnotized us and our parents into GROWING LAWNS.
You, new gardener, can rent a tiller, but what you need for a first garden and the ones to follow are a shovel and a hoe. A tiller will turn more dirt than you need turning, and you’ll still have to separate the mass of grass roots from the dirt before you can pulverize that soil to a depth of at least a foot. Most plants don’t need much more than a foot of dirt to do well.
My first garden, I debated whether to do a raised bed or make a flat garden. Carpentry was involved with a raised bed, and I didn’t want to use treated wood. Untreated wood would last a season. A garden in the ground, refreshed each year with compost that I would provide, would last as many seasons as I was prepared to do hard, satisfying work two days a year.
Today, there’s a bewildering amount of information on gardening on the internet. Maybe it’s just me, the old newspaperman, but most internet stories about anything take forever to get to the point. Try the LSU AgCenter’s website. The information’s concise, tailored for this part of the country, and suggests plants that have been tested where they’re meant to grow.
I like books. My first gardening book is out of print, but you’ll see its classic cover if you Google “The Progressive Farmer/Southern Living Vegetable Gardening” published by the Progressive Farmer/Southern Living. For instruction in laying out and cultivating a garden, the book is worth looking for on eBay. My other bible of the garden is Southern Herb Growing by mother-daughter gardeners Madalene Hill and Gwen Barclay, with Jean Hardy, published by Shearer.
My first garden, my wife and I were living in a rented house in North Baton Rouge. It was twice the house and yard we could have gotten for the money in South Baton Rouge, where we’d buy a house a few years later. All that backyard tempted me to try my hand at gardening. I turned the smug-lush St. Augustine, beat the dirt from the roots, and raked the grass into a large pile.
I’d planted tomato and bell pepper plants in rows and was planting Louisiana evergreen onions when a man cleared his throat on the other side of the fence.
“What?” I snapped. I’d felt the unwanted presence of a neighbor for long minutes.
“Pardon me,” the old guy said, “but you’re planting them onions upside down.”
My neighbor was the first in a long line of gardeners who would give sound advice at just the right time.
I won’t list all the vegetables you might put in your garden. A trip to the nursery or hardware store will show you what’s available. I’ll offer just this piece of advice: Plant what you like to eat, and plant at least two things you don’t like. I was not a broccoli or cauliflower eater until I grew them myself.
Plant your garden with a child. If you don’t have one of your own, borrow or rent one.
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