Lessons from the Garden: Lesson Three

Lesson Three: 'Tis Better to Give than to Receive

I have learned that Santa, though ficticious, has a great job. [In commenting on Santa's apocryphal nature, I am referring only to the mythical person of Santa Clause, namely a "jolly", rotund white male of uncertain age (though figured as being well into his golden years) who lives at the North Pole (as if that were possible with global climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps), and, harnessing the power of aeronautically inclined reindeer, delivers presents to all the "good" girls and boys, while distributing coal to "bad" children, under the veil of darkness between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. My comments are meant in no way to disparage or deny the existance of the historical figure of Saint Nicholas of Myra, who served as the Bishop of Turkey in the early fourth century.]

On what basis to I declare the excellencies of Santa's imagined job? I have found great blessing and joy in bringing vegetables for friends to Wednesday night fellowship and Bible study. I feel like Father Christmas, filling the orders placed in advance to my brothers and sisters: Dora and Joy like green beans; Thomas loves home-grown tomatoes; Cecilia likes fresh basil; Elite loves zuccini, &c, &c. Shirley is even taking all of my left over squash and cooking it for our Friday social.

In some respects, my job is superior to Old Saint Nic's: I just give vegetables to everyone who wants them, without the moral quandry and of imperfect science of trying to determine who's been naughty and who's been nice. Since I'm not a world-renowned celebrity, I can go out in public without fear of harassment or the paparazzi. I am neither recognized at the mall nor beset with requests for toys and small electronic goods. I am not obliged to allow small children to cry, spill things, or pee on my lap for hours on end, while grumpy, hapless parents wait in line for the chance to let their children to torment me.

It's good to see how God is using my natural love of gardening to serve others and bring them homegrown happiness.

Moral of the story:

Yea, taking in is blessing sure,
This truth can't be denied;
But giving out is blessing pure--
With joy and bliss beside!

Beneficence makes wond'rous sums,
Imparting wealth galore;
You give, and give, and give, and yet
You're richer than before.

Now think upon God's charity:
We see, we breath, we live!
And fast imbibe this verity:
'Tis blessing all to give!

[Yes, I wrote these three stanzas in ballad form, but don't they sound very Longfellow-meets-Isaac-Watts?]

Lessons from the Garden: Lesson Two

Lesson Two: Some Things are out of [my] Control.

My squash plants keep losing fruit. This is not just a small loss, involving a couple of squash, but somewhere in the vicinity of 80-90% of the fruit. When the squash is about 4-5 inches long (or about 3-4 inches in diameter for the round variety) the end with the flower (as opposed to the end attached to the vine) turns yellow, then brown. This menacing brownness begins to creep upward toward the stem, and eventually the entire squash falls off prematurely. By the time that happens, the whole squash is brown and wrinkley--not the picture of someting that one would normally like to ingest.

According to my gardner's encycolpedia, this condition in which the blossom-end of the fruit turns brown and begins to rot is termed (unimaginatively) "end blossom rot," and is caused by a micronutrient deficiency in the soil. I can add calcium chloride to the soil, but it needs to be worked in deeply, not just sprinkled, and as cuccurbits are very sensitive about having their roots disturbed, there is really nothing I can do right now. I'll just need to wait another year.

I suppose this "wait another year" theme sort of falls under the "all good things are worth the wait" lesson, but I need to get my milage out of this series, so I'm classifying this as "some things are out of my control."

Moral of the story: There are some things we can't control, like when your sweater has a hole, not getting cast in the title role, or getting assigned to graveyard patrol. Yet, fortunately, life, on the whole, is not altogether uncontroll-a-bowl. We can stop the spread of the ozone hole, have good behavior and get out on parole, and clean the air by not using coal. In general if one has a goal, it can be attained by working heart and soul.

Lessons from the Garden: Lesson One

Today begins a new series intended as light-hearted parables for modern times. In the best of these parables, I will extract a meaningful lesson gleaned from my tasks in the garden; in the less well cultivated, I will impose some irrelevant and contrived principle onto the mundane, otherwise meaningless acts of manual labor I willfully undertake. So, let the adventure begin!

Lesson One: All Good Beans are Worth the Wait

Fine weather and meticuluous attention to my green beans have finally yielded a return on my investment:

(Third harvest of the season, from left to right: zuccini, Japanese cucumber, Fortex green beans, Kentucky Blue green beans.)

My experience this season has taught me that gardening is a discipline requiring zen-like patience; every step in the process seems like an excercise designed to train compulsive rushers and curb their unrestrained haste. One need wait for the weather to become warm enough to plant seeds. Then one need wait for the seeds to germinate (to me, this always seems like the most agonizing step). Then one need wait for the seedlings to bear fruit. Finally, one need wait for the fruit to mature and ripen.

The harrowing demands of this regimen of delayed gratification notwithstanding, ultimately I find gardening a peaceful, relaxing practice. Sweet, crunchy, fresh, and organic, home-grown green beans are definitely worth the time and effort. They are great sauteed with a little butter and brown sugar, or boiled, chilled and served with a raspberry vinegarette. Another easy method of preparation I invented recently is to sautee frenched green beans in butter and garlic, and then add in about a quarter of a diced fresh tomato. Fantastic!

Moral of the story: all good beans are worth the wait--even if the beans' ripening is late, the gardener needn't be irate. He'll be rewarded with a spate [of legumes], and irritation is an unseemly trait. Instead of having forbearance-hate, one simply ought to trust in fate, which, in time, brings beans by the crate--and often even by the freight (maybe seven, maybe eight!)

Let them Eat Cake

The other day I had a bagel.

...Or, I had what was ostensibly a bagel. I had a baked product derived from wheat flour that was marketed as a "bagel." I had what appeared to be a bagel in shape, size, color, and weight. Yet the form of that iniquitous, fraudulent doughnut belied it's true character: it was just hot dog bread disguised in the visage of a bagel! The flavor of this imposter is best described, in what gourmand-speak is often referred to, as "ew."

Anyone who has had a bagel proper (which is first poached, then baked) knows that its two-step cooking process yields a firm, crispy exterior, and a warm, chewy interior. (Does this describe me in any way? Perhaps I have a firm, uninviting exterior, yet on the inside am soft, warm, and tender?)

Yet, regrettably and somewhat bewilderingly, this incident is not an isolated case: instances of identity theft in the community of baked goods are on the rise. Not too long ago at a movie theatre I had that same, low-quality hot dog bun dough shaped like a pretzel--a very disgusting and unpalatable surprise. But the worst offense, the sort of thing that would have incited me, were I a more litigious person, into a full scale, class action law suit, was this: I had a hot dog bun shaped like a croissant.

I am aware of the righteous indignation the aforementioned misfeasance is likely stirring in the breasts of many a blog-reader sitting in front of their workplace computers, or else resting at home before their PCs while hoping to catch some entertainment. Apologies to those of you whose delicate sensibilities I have offended, but I cannot soley consider light-hearted topics of amusement. There are, in fact, real acts of criminality and issues of social injustice that we must consider and, ultimately, correct.

My hope in promulgating this story is not simply to shock or offend anyone, but to bring members of the blogosphere together to right these wrongs. Was this not of what President Kennedy himself was speaking when he uttered those great words, "Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation'—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, [hot dog buns shaped as croissants,] and war itself."?

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently took the United States to task over Guantanamo Bay by arguing that the U.S. is losing the moral authority it once enjoyed. The force of his argument came from the assertion that in a democracy, all citizens are responsible for the actions of government, and ultimately, for the course of their society. If this is so, then we are all of us at fault for the decline of quality of our breadstuffs. The pervasiveness of this pernicious problem is an indication of the general decline of the American civilization. Do we stand for truth if the mislabeling of baked goods of all kinds goes unpunished? Do we stand for justice if innocent citizens are left to eek out an existence on substandard "croissants," while the guilty vendors of these products remain unprosecuted? Do we stand for liberty if our people are not free to enjoy a real bagel?

The answer, my friends, is clearly "No." A lesser man might, perhaps, give up on his nation and move to France, where, despite egregiously high taxes, a decrepid and doomed socialist system, and a corpse of an economy, they still understand the importance of bread. And when there is no bread to be had in the Fifth Republic, at least one can still have his cake--and eat it, too.