Find the right gardening partner

BY SID PRANKE

I’ve done the community garden thing over the past six years in several different gardens in St. Paul, ever since I sold my house and returned to apartment living. It strikes me as unusual that the people I’ve met there and the experiences I’ve had have made such strong impressions on me. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed hanging out with other gardeners: maybe because I’m from North Dakota and I’m missing that connection to the land and sky, and hanging around people with that similar affinity helps fill that void.

The hardest thing about gardening, in my opinion, is preparing your soil. Having someone till the garden, or renting a roto-tiller yourself for the day, is the best investment you can make to minimize your frustrations and preserve your strength over the long run. One of my gardening partners, Joe, tricked his three large dogs into helping him till our garden plot by hiding pieces of hot dogs in the soil. Dirt went flying, and Joe stood alongside with his spade, to help the process along by turning the soil over and over again.

Constructing raised beds also can make things easier on you; there’s less bending and twisting involved. And a good garden stool has been indispensable to me; it makes gardening feel more like a labor of love and less like pure back-breaking labor.

I shared a garden with my friend Sara one summer. We chipped in on the plot and tilling fees, and staked out our own territory. I decided to plant a lot of tomato plants—and I screwed up pretty much right away by not watering the seedlings well enough, and then waiting two days too long before I came back to check on my plants. They had all shriveled up, so I had to start all over with new seedlings.
Sara was grooving over our garden—she made little signs with sticks attached that said “LOVE POTATOES’ and “PEACE PARSLEY” and placed them in the garden where those plants were growing. The possibilities are amusing and endless with this little sign idea. How about “Strung-out String Beans” or “Lascivious Lima Beans.” Cool………..

We got a lot of good vegetables and herbs from our garden that summer. And come the harvest moon, Sara and I were out socializing at a local rock club. Around midnight, we decided to leave the club with a few nice guys we had been talking to. So we all walked to our garden about a mile away to dig up a few potatoes and whatever else struck our fancy—one of the fellows and I had reached the garden first. A stone wall about four feet high separated the garden from the street. Just as I and this cute fellow with muscles were about to scale the wall, a police car chirped at us and the officer yelled to us from his open window—“What are you guys doing?” I said, “We’re harvesting.” The officer eyed us over, hesitated and then said, “Have a nice harvest,” as he tore off again down the street. We both started laughing and ended up making out in the dirt before Sara and the others got there. Cool………..