Not Just a Hoe

There's something about working in a garden. Those who don't garden cannot understand this. It's only 8am in the morning but I've been up with the Labs since 5 so it seems like half a day has already passed to me. I grab my gardening gloves. The pair I am using now are hot pink, stretchy and light weight. The palms are sort of rubbery. They're great for Summer. Not too sweaty and at least they protect my fingernails from becoming stained with a combination of brown dirt and green vegetation. This morning, I head to the vegetable garden. Two of my raised beds need weeding.

 As I begin in the tomato bed, grasping my long handled,  three pronged hoe, I think about how this handy tool has seen more than a lifetime of work. It belonged to my grandmother. I can still picture her in her backyard gardens, cultivating her rose beds with this very same hoe. She loved her gardens. She didn't have nearly what I have in my yard now, but what she did have was well tended. Her rock garden to the back corner, the iris bed that lined the back rock wall, her blueberry bushes in the left corner. What she was most proud of was her roses. She had so many varieties. It seemed a new one would arrive from her Jackson and Perkins catalog each year. She took great care to prune and give them regular feedings. She battled the Japanese beetles and dusted them chemicals that I would never use on my plants today.
I hoe the weeds, sift through the cultivated dirt around the tomato plants, then toss the weeds to a pile by my garden gate. I hate getting sweaty but somehow when I garden, it doesn't bother me so much. Halfway done, I pause to glance at how everything is looking. I wonder how many young people garden these days. Do they even know the difference between  basil and parsley, or sage and oregano? Can they tell the difference between what is a weed and the newly planted lettuce or carrots coming up? And that's just the vegetable garden.  I imagine that most do not know the difference between annuals, biennials and perennials. They can't identify an iris leaf from that of a lily. Do they know that hosta and painted fern like shade and daisies and lilies love sun, or that a common name for rudbekia is brown-eyed susan.  My mother and my grandmother were wonderful teachers. I am so grateful that they taught me to enjoy gardening.

As I continue to work, I enjoy reliving sweet memories of my grandmother.
How often, I would stop by her house on a Summer day, when I was old enough to drive. I would not bother to tap at her porch door. She had a little wooden box that hung next to the door that told visitors if she was "out back gardening".  I would walk through the side garage door, and would find her, often times leaning on her hoe(my hoe) resting a bit. She would be in one of her gardening dresses, sometimes with an apron on. Her orthopedic shoes laced tightly, and her knee brace over her support hose,  even on the hottest of days. I don't think she ever went barefoot. But even though her feet were crippled with hammar toes and corns,  and her arthritic knees were so painful that she could hardly get up when she would kneel down to do her gardening, that would not stop her.

My wrists and fingers are beginning to stiffen and my lower back is aching. The sweat is dripping down the side of my face and my eyes are itching. I remove one glove to rub my eyes and wipe my forehead with the side of my arm. I grasp the hoe tighter and know that whatever pain I am feeling could not compare to what my grandmother must have felt and yet she kept going. It's addictive. Keep hoeing, keep hoeing, every last weed.  It must be like runner's high, that no matter what pain, you will keep on going until you're finished. That must be what my grandmother did. I survey the tomato bed and bend to gather up the pile of weeds I have collected. As I close the gate behind me and toss the weeds into the composting area, I am satisfied with my accomplishment. Half done. Now for the cucumbers and beans. I rub my shoulder and know my neck will pay for this work later tonight.

 I should stop now but the other bed is crying out to me. That must be the way it was with my grandmother. My mother would often send my sisters or me down to my grandmother's house on sunny gardening days. She knew it  would force her to take a break. Sometimes I would help her and other times she would stop for a bit. We would go sit on her porch.  I would sip a cool  lemonade while she had a fresh brewed ice tea or coffee with a touch of cream.  I loved watching the cream swirl down into her ice filled glass. As I left, she would promise to stop for the day, but I knew her bushel basket was  only half filled with weeds and as soon as I was gone from the driveway, I imagine she would head back to weed.
I love this hoe. I love that it was my grandmother's. I feel she is with me everytime I use it. Keep hoeing , keep hoeing, every last weed.  The weeds twine around the prongs of the hoe, my fingers grasp the handle tightly and just like my memories, I never want to let go.