Mary, Mary...

We spent yesterday afternoon - a hot, sunny, cloudless day - in the garden. Yes, we worked in the garden on a Sunday and yes, this is frowned upon and yes, I also did two loads of laundry and hung it on the line to dry so everybody could see I did laundry on a Sunday, which is also frowned upon. So sue me. How can we do the garden on Saturday when we have to shop on Saturday, because you can't shop on Sunday. Put that's a topic for another post. Back to the garden. We put in the herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, corriander - the chives and sage survived from last year and in theory the peppermint comes up every year), a row of tomatoes, some eggplants, and some zucchini. Yes, we're late on this. I know. But I've got my excuses, um, I mean I've got my reasons. For one thing, Small Boy keeps us pretty busy, plus he has impeccible timing - as soon as there is dirt under every last fingernail, he'll need something RIGHT NOW. For another thing, we're moving. It's looking more and more like it'll be an August 1 move date, which means the tomatoes, eggplants, and zucchini will bear fruit and veggie after we have gone. Which definitely takes some of the incentive out of the gardening, you know?

But it had to be done. Something, anyway, had to be done. At least R. had already downed the weeds and roto-tilled so it was just a big bare patch of earth and no longer a jungle of weeds and grasses. But a big bare patch of earth is no great shakes either. You see, we live in a farming village. A Swiss farming village. These Swiss farm wives do not mess around and they are not hobbyist gardeners. They have big serious vegetable gardens that are perfectly weedless (okay, they use Roundup, but still), beautifully laid out, and carefully tended. Did I mention there is not a weed to be found? (I know, it's the Roundup, which I resist, but still). I'm a hobbyist gardener, and by comparison my garden looks ragged around the edges. Okay, I admit it. It is ragged around the edges. But at least it exists.

For I feel a certain amount of unspoken social pressure to keep the garden up. A farm garden belongs to a farmhouse, and to make it worse, our garden runs along a fairly well-travelled sidewalk and everybody walking by can see it in all its (ragged) glory. Please don't misunderstand, I enjoy the garden, and I missed it last summer when I was not allowed to work it (I was pregnant and toxoplasmosis negative and my OB outlawed the garden and its by-products), but I'm a hobbyist gardener and my garden does not match up to local standards. It just doesn't, and sans Roundup it probably never will. Plus I'm learning as I go with this garden thing - I'm a city girl and and the end of the day I don't know what I'm doing. I rely on my mother-in-law for planting dates and what flowers are socially appropriate, and I watch my neighbors' houses for the magic It's Now Geranium Season day. One day - the same day - everybody suddenly has their geraniums in the window boxes. I never seem to get that memo.

But I try. The geraniums go in, a weekend or more later than everybody else's. The garden gets planted, usually too late and probably not laid out all that well. I tend the garden, but without Roundup I'm fighting a losing battle and it will never be spotless. But I try, and, for the most part, I enjoy the effort and I will miss the garden after we move.