Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Garden ❯ The Garden ( Chapter 1 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: Knittingknots 
On Love and Gardening
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Vignette | Uploaded On: 06.28.2007 | Pages: 1 | Words: 641 | Visits: 662 | Status: Completed
On Love and Gardening
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Vignette | Uploaded On: 06.28.2007 | Pages: 1 | Words: 641 | Visits: 662 | Status: Completed
Sue Stone
sue_stone@stonesneatstuff.com
PO Box 12957
Ogden UT 84414
Bio: Raised in New Orleans, but now living in the intermountain west, Sue Stone finds her life revolves around three poles: craft, history and language. She writes historical reference for needle workers and living historians, and fiction that celebrates the human spirit in the everyday things of life.
Gardening
The dirt sifted through her fingers, dry as dust.
Watching it fall to the ground, she remembered the dirt where she grew up. Gumbo they called it, dark and rich like the spicy soup it was named after, but heavy, sticky. It would grow anything, but it would stick to the hoe, to shoes, to clothes and make starting a garden bed a daunting job. Needed a lot of sand and compost to be able to work it without breaking your back.
She stood up, brushing her hands on blue-jeaned thighs, and straightened her hat. Not dry like this stuff, she thought. No, that gumbo sure could hold water. All winter long, sometimes, her garden would have standing water, and crawdad chimneys would poke up all over the place. And here, in this desert soil it seemed she couldn't water enough.
But she had to admit that the ground was rich. Needed compost and clay, worked in well, but once it got started, things bloomed. Pulling her gloves back on, she started chasing weeds with the hoe.
They'd only been here three years. It was an old house, with a well established garden neglected for a few years, but still with lots of promise. For the last two years she had been making it over the way she wanted it, a cool quiet shady oasis in the summer, with shade loving plants like columbine and hosta.
"Funny how things work out," she thought, "Now that I moved out west, I have a woodland garden, and back home, how sunbaked it all was."
She remembered it fondly, remembering the red wasps drifting by lazily on the summer air, sailing past blackeyed peas and okra, how she had an eternal fight with bermuda grass sneaking in with its wiry runners, and how the squash never did do very well. It was easy to keep it going most of the year, starting in February, with lettuce and radishes. Here everything that time of year was still covered with snow. She used to get two batches of tomatos, spring and fall, but here she found out that it went from too cool to to hot to set fruit almost overnight. So she gave up growing tomatos in the little bit of sun she had, and planted cosmos instead. Looked a lot prettier, but wasn't the same.
Putting down her hoe, she sighed, some for the old garden, some for the life she had left behind, some for the home that only existed any more in her memory.
"There you are, Sweets."
She turned around, saw the aging but gentle face of her husband, still wearing his sunglasses and hat. For him she had left the south and came to the mountains.
"Hi, Honey. I thought I'd get a little work in while you were out."
He smiled ."It's looking good out here." he said.
She walked up to him, rested her head on his shoulder, smelled the good smell of him, and the ghosts of her past vanished. It was a good trade she thought, her old garden for this man.
"What's for dinner?" he asked.
Laughing for some reason she couldn't quite explain, she went into the house.
sue_stone@stonesneatstuff.com
PO Box 12957
Ogden UT 84414
Bio: Raised in New Orleans, but now living in the intermountain west, Sue Stone finds her life revolves around three poles: craft, history and language. She writes historical reference for needle workers and living historians, and fiction that celebrates the human spirit in the everyday things of life.
Gardening
The dirt sifted through her fingers, dry as dust.
Watching it fall to the ground, she remembered the dirt where she grew up. Gumbo they called it, dark and rich like the spicy soup it was named after, but heavy, sticky. It would grow anything, but it would stick to the hoe, to shoes, to clothes and make starting a garden bed a daunting job. Needed a lot of sand and compost to be able to work it without breaking your back.
She stood up, brushing her hands on blue-jeaned thighs, and straightened her hat. Not dry like this stuff, she thought. No, that gumbo sure could hold water. All winter long, sometimes, her garden would have standing water, and crawdad chimneys would poke up all over the place. And here, in this desert soil it seemed she couldn't water enough.
But she had to admit that the ground was rich. Needed compost and clay, worked in well, but once it got started, things bloomed. Pulling her gloves back on, she started chasing weeds with the hoe.
They'd only been here three years. It was an old house, with a well established garden neglected for a few years, but still with lots of promise. For the last two years she had been making it over the way she wanted it, a cool quiet shady oasis in the summer, with shade loving plants like columbine and hosta.
"Funny how things work out," she thought, "Now that I moved out west, I have a woodland garden, and back home, how sunbaked it all was."
She remembered it fondly, remembering the red wasps drifting by lazily on the summer air, sailing past blackeyed peas and okra, how she had an eternal fight with bermuda grass sneaking in with its wiry runners, and how the squash never did do very well. It was easy to keep it going most of the year, starting in February, with lettuce and radishes. Here everything that time of year was still covered with snow. She used to get two batches of tomatos, spring and fall, but here she found out that it went from too cool to to hot to set fruit almost overnight. So she gave up growing tomatos in the little bit of sun she had, and planted cosmos instead. Looked a lot prettier, but wasn't the same.
Putting down her hoe, she sighed, some for the old garden, some for the life she had left behind, some for the home that only existed any more in her memory.
"There you are, Sweets."
She turned around, saw the aging but gentle face of her husband, still wearing his sunglasses and hat. For him she had left the south and came to the mountains.
"Hi, Honey. I thought I'd get a little work in while you were out."
He smiled ."It's looking good out here." he said.
She walked up to him, rested her head on his shoulder, smelled the good smell of him, and the ghosts of her past vanished. It was a good trade she thought, her old garden for this man.
"What's for dinner?" he asked.
Laughing for some reason she couldn't quite explain, she went into the house.