CROCKETT'S VICTORY GARDEN

I'm not a gardener, though I wouldn't be ashamed of it if I was.   My interest in gardening comes from my desire to reproduce the romantic Black Forest that you see in classic kids book illustrations: the mysterious and menacing home of witches, raptors and things that dwell in the shadows.  I like flowers but only as a counterpoint to set off the forest. They shouldn't look too civilized or fussed over. 

But I'm an appreciator of this sort of thing, not a participant. I'm always looking for the quick fix that'll provide the most stimulation for the least amount of work. Certainly an aromatic garden fits that description.  Some of the most fragrant plants are little more than weeds, and require almost no care once they get started. Lots of people have small herb gardens outside the kitchen door. They're easy to grow, smell great, and taste great...what's not to like?



Here's a book I just got from the library: "Crockett's Victory Garden," one of the bibles of backyard gardening.  I don't see much about herbs in there, but the book has an interesting structure. It's all about what you should do every month of the year to grow your own vegetable and flower garden. Crockett's not really interested in flowers but he figures that if you're going to go to all that trouble to grow vegetables, then you might as well throw in some flowers too.



According to Crockett it's already too late to get a lot of flowers and vegetables started. You start summer gardens in the late winter and early spring. Maybe you could start strawberries this late, but you'd better do it right away. According to Crockett you might get some fruit buds in just over a month, say in June, but you should resist the temptation to let them grow. Keep cutting off the buds until August and that'll force the plant to slow down and send out tendrils to make new plants. If you do this you should have batch of big, pluckable strawberries by the fall.



May is also a good time to plant pole beans.  You should grow these even if you don't like beans because the tendrils are beautiful. Books about weird geometric shapes in nature always include bean plants. I had some pole beans growing under my bedroom window and it was a treat to see the constantly-changing shapes they would take as they snaked up the screen.



I wish more people would plant shrub bushes (above) and ivy around their houses. They grow easily from cuttings, and require no effort to raise. You just have to cut them.



May is a good time to buy or plant geraniums. these are truly the lazy man's flower. They look great and only require light watering every other day in the summer. They bloom most of the year in warm climates like LA but the stems look gnarly after the first year. That's OK, just plant new ones from cuttings. Just put the cutting in a jar of water and it'll sprout roots.



Here's (above) a small Japanese garden that I found when looking for the other pictures. *Sigh*

BTW, the two paintings of plants in the middle of the post are by Christiana Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick's wife. I particularly like the one with tiny little bean and cucumber sprouts. Sprouts are a sheer joy to watch. You see the miracle of new life unfolding in front of your eyes. You find yourself asking,  "Are these delicate, fuzzy little things really alive? How can that be? They're so different than I am."  This time of year everybody should have sprouts growing out of old orange juice cans on their windowsills. That way you can witness the miraculous and profound while you scrub pots.