Thu, 24 May 2012
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As part of our going green' week, V-grrrl reveals that Spring Fever has struck Chez V.I’m sure if we put some of our family DNA under a microscope, we’d be able to see a green thread spiraling through its helix. That’s because I come from a long line of Greenies.
My grandfather immigrated to the United States from Italy, started a nursery and worked as a gardener. His customers and clients included some of the wealthiest estate owners in New York. My grandmother’s vegetable gardens were mounds that swelled up out of the backyard because she was so fond of composting and adding “good black dirt” to her planting. I like to think she invented raised beds. You didn’t have to bend over far to weed her garden.
My Italian mother could grow anything. The problem was her tendency to nurture ALL plant life meant that our yard was not only really green—it was really overgrown. My mom was reluctant to pull plants up for esthetic reasons or cut them back too much. The front door of my childhood home was virtually inaccessible due to out of control yews and other foundation shrubs. My mom’s groundcover beds were shrouded in mystery. They swallowed baseballs, toys, and evidence of my siblings’ illegal beer drinking. Mom’s plantings were like a botanical Bermuda Triangle.
My father, an Irishman, was not too interested in landscaping but he had a passion for organic gardening long before organic gardening was upscale and hip. When I was little I saw it as downscale and dirty. I still remember my shame when the trucks loaded with composted horse manure would show up at our suburban house and dump their loads. My heritage may have been Green, but I was definitely Brown. Gardening is not in my blood. To compensate for this genetic defect, I married a Belgian Greenie and we have two Green offspring who love Belgium’s temperate climate, enormous public parks, carefully trimmed hedges, abundance of flowers, and ever green grass.
As soon as the daffodils opened two weeks ago, my children E-Grrrl and Mr. A could no longer suppress the dormant urge to cultivate life. My son rummaged through the kitchen cabinets and found some dry beans which he and his sister placed with wet paper towels into Ziploc bags attached to the window to sprout. He also rescued an onion and a bulb of garlic from becoming part of dinner, setting them in dirt to sprout as well.
The two kids hijacked their dad’s spade and a pile of glass jars from the recycling pile in the basement and went outside seeking plants. They dug up moss, grass, and various and sundry other green and glorious things, transplanting them into the jars and spritzing them (and each other) with a spray bottle full of water. For their finale, they raided the potting bench and shook unknown seeds into a planter just to see what would grow. The windowsill in the kitchen has now been transformed into a long and lovely cat salad bar--I mean NURSERY.
When the warm sunny days hit earlier this week, Mr. A and E-Grrrl were eager to explore the wandeling by our home. We squished along the muddy path and admired the budding trees and pink, yellow, and white wildflowers growing on the forest floor.
At the pond, my son was looking for tadpoles and was thrilled when E-Grrrl pointed out something even better—mountains of frog and fish eggs in the marshy areas. Mr. A carefully harvested some eggs and put them in the small pond in the terrarium and frog habitat he had created at home. With a little luck the eggs will soon hatch and develop into homegrown cat toys—I mean FROGS.
March 13, 2007
V-Grrrl
© Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
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