The Burrow

I really did plan to get the lettuce 6pack into the garden bed.  I brought my sharp digging tools so that the big kids could continue their work on the holes for the rosemary and the blackberry bush.  With all the rain that's fallen, our normally rock solid ground is just a bit more pliable; I anticipated great progress being made. I didn't find a parking space close enough for my greedy satisfaction by the back gate near the garden, so I drove to the front parking lot and walked in the main door, carrying my bag of tools and a smaller bag of brownies for each of the kindergarten teachers.  I distributed single foil wrapped home baked goods to the receptionist and the Principal's assistant and the nurse and the Native People's Outreach worker on my way out the door, to cross the playground and walk to the garden. I didn't get very far. Grandma!  Grandma! and then there were kindergarten kids, 4 rows deep, trying to get their arms around me.  I was hooked.  ...

They wrap scallions around kale around a bright yellow cauliflower, all grown and harvested in our gardens. a They examine the roots of a harvested-too-hard-and-it-all-came-out plant.  And when their tiny fingers aren't quite strong enough, the tip of the plastic pink trowel helps to get down deep. Their faces are wonderful. Their fingers are magical.

I thought it was pretty simple:: Take a plastic cup (no, it didn't matter if you took a red on e or a blue one) Use the big Sharpie to write your name on the cup Make sure Grandma Suzi pokes a hole in the bottom of your cup Fill your cup with soil from a yellow bag Come back and I'll give you an onion or 3 seeds I thought it was pretty obvious: The cups were big and bright 20 oz ribbed plastic If your name isn't on the cup, how will you know it is yours? The hole is either there, or not There were two, bright yellow, 50 qt bags in the garden... and it's not that big a space FILL.... not Put a Little Bit You are not done until you have planted something I'll grant that the hole in the bottom of the cup was counter-intuitive when they were supposed to fill it up, but the hole was made by a small, pointed pruner, not a lot of soil would bleed through, and the water would make its way out of the cup so the plant didn't moulder and die from drown...

They came racing out of the classroom, crying my name. Grandma! Grandma!  LOOK WHAT WE GREW!!!! I was as surprised as they were. They started the seeds weeks ago. Now they have stems and leaves . Caring has rewards. Just another life lesson from Grandma's Garden.

I created a Shutterfly book of a kindergarten class making scarecrows.  Before unveiling it, I wondered if, perhaps, they would know some of the characters in the story.  They certainly did know them, as their squeals and points and grins revealed. At the end, the teacher was teary.  Those are the happy kind of tears , I explained as she wiped them away.  We closed our eyes and listened to our feelings for a second or two, then opened them and looked at our friends. Everyone had a smile, a big, gigantic, ginormous, I've never smiled this big ever in my life face on.  We floated on that feeling as we paraded across the playground, gathering admirers as we entered the garden, restricting access to us and us alone.  We placed one in the nook of the mesquite tree, and one on the side of the orange tree.  We ate scallions for our Super Power (extreme bad breath) and described the taste as we strolled back to class. We had all the good feelings t...

I listened to the lawyers teach a seminar on the Constitution, the framers, and impeachment.  I turned off the sound when the Republicans began to spew mud in all directions except the one most deserving - upstream. I drove to Prince and found solace in the garden. Our hanging baskets and our scallions  and our radishes  are doing very well. It's a treasure hunt beneath the foliage. As always, there is fiendishness afoot. Though this scholar is politely watering the plants while posing for this picture, further examination reveals what he'd been doing just moments before.  Why he felt the need to make a mud crater is beyond me, yet he did.  And his classmates were thrilled with the sucking sounds made by the rakes in the muck. They smoothed and they dug and they giggled.  They were - literally - a ray of sunshine on a muddy day.

I read Dr. Seuss's The Lorax  to every student in every kindergarten every year. There's a moral that resonates with me, a moral that is explicitly spelled out - Unless you care, nothing will change. I always pause and point to each one of them when the story gets to this point.  Unless.  You. This is their garden, not Grandma's Garden. It seemed only right that they do the heavy lifting. Thanks to a grant from the UofA and the USDA, we're well on our way to creating our own Lorax Garden. We're going to fill it with weird and wonderful edible plants, like this passion fruit, which Rillito Nursery is holding for me.  We're conspiring to find more wonderful ideas; we're open to suggestions. I picked up the supplies at Home Depot, where they loaded my car.   I unloaded them onto a cart myself; it was my workout for the day. I got the 1st grade to push the cart on the sidewalk; they needed my help so there are no pictures. I let the k...

Everyone knew what to do. No one had to ask how.   Checking the soil so the potted aloe vera wasn't over-watered.... because it's a plant not a fish.... it can drown in too much water.......  ....that's a true gardening skill. Even the raking was gentler. None of us could explain it. We all liked it.  All three of them planted the seeds that have now sprouted as nasturtiums and either sweet peas or hollyhocks.... if only we could remember.... but it really doesn't matter because we'll find out soon enough when the flowers come out.   In the meantime, we'll have some of the scallion growing out of the onion we stuck in the middle.  It tastes so much better when we grow it ourselves. The mandarin orange tree was ready to be harvested, and everyone had as much as (insert gender neutral pronoun) wanted.   And then there was this. I found the head of one of the scarecrows hidden in the garden bench's bin. It's...

Look what she's wearing while she's watering the Hanging Garden. Boots.  Jeans.  A long sleeve jacket. Fall has come to Tucson.  It was in the 70's today, and everyone was wearing warm clothes. Filling the pitchers requires skill and patience; it's a talent possessed by a rare few.  Nobody was enthusiastic about getting wet today, except one kindergartener who proudly stood before me, arms spread wide, declaring " Grandma Suzi, I'm all wet!" "Well, that's what happens when you stand in front of an open hose nozzle,"  I laughed and told him to go play in the sun and dry off. There is always weeding to be done.   Reaching is required, since there's no stepping in the Mandarin Orange tree's planting bowl.  And, as always, there is raking. I don't know why they love it, but they do.  Today, we piled the detritus into neat piles loaded it into the barrow  wheeled it out to the garbage can wher...

It was busy last Wednesday in Grandma's Garden. There was, as always, watering to be done.  The tomatoes are very satisfying to water; the leaves perk right up.  Raking, as always, was a prized activity.  The notion of the rake as an outdoor broom, the shovel as a dustpan, and the green barrow as the trash can has established deep roots in a dedicated group of gardeners, who take great pride in their work. The main event was refurbishing The Hanging Gardens of Prince.  The baskets were filled with soil, and your hands and your arms and your bracelet got very very dirty and you just couldn't stop giggling because Grandma Suzi wants you to feel the soil that will nurture your seeds so being dirty was just fine.  The seeds were very different, and had different needs.  The hollyhocks were flat and round and black and tan and just needed a gentle push into the soil The nasturtiuim seeds, on the other hand, were bigger and went in deeper.... 1...