The Garden She Left Me

My grandma never said "let's go gardening." She said "should we go on a tour of the garden, darling." And off we would go. Down and around every garden bed. Every plant got a proper introduction.

I learned to grow vegetables from her. The basics. What to water, when to plant, how to read a season. But the biggest lesson she ever gave me had nothing to do with technique.

She told me that every crop you lose is not a failure. It is information. You are just learning what did not work last year.

I have thought about that sentence more times than I can count.

My grandma grew everything. Small gardens covering every corner of her backyard. The woman did not have unused soil.

During COVID I would take her on FaceTime tours of my garden. She never got to see it in person. My husband and I moved to our home with the gardens during COVID, and the timing meant she never made it here. So I brought the garden to her the only way I could. She would lean into the phone and ask questions like she was standing right there.

She was already sick then. We did not know it was brain cancer yet. She had one small cherry tomato bush on her porch. That was her last garden.

She passed away and I took everything. Every pot from her back porch. Every seed she had saved. She would have gone crazy knowing they went to waste. Some germinated. Some did not. A few of the plants I thought were completely dead. Indoor plants were never my strength. I used to buy them, love them for a while, and then quietly retire them to her house when they started fading. They always came back to life there.

After she passed I watered those plants and I waited. With patience I did not know I had.

Five years later I have multiples of almost everything that was on her porch. I have split them as they grew. For special occasions I deliver a piece of her to friends and family.

And the very first plant I ever retired to her house. The one I gave up on when I was younger. It is still in the same pot. Same American flag sticking out of the soil.

Still growing.

If you had a person in your life who taught you to tend something, you know what I mean when I say the garden is not really about the garden.