Cucumbers, chipmunks and college

 

I’m a Wood Duck again.

I found myself back in a college class for the first time in a quarter century, taking one class this semester at one of my old alma maters, Century College (nee Lakewood Community College), home of the Woodies.

This classroom was virtual, but there were still the faces and names of twenty one other students and a professor.

Online learning is a challenge for a plodding, paunchy, middle-aged man. A new version of Windows (again); a new Web browser; portals and Apps.

But there, as always, was a textbook, and syllabus, and assignments, and attendance and talk of the final.

No great matter. From one great opportunity to another is my motto. George Harrison once said, “The best thing that ever happened to me was being in the Beatles; the second-best thing was getting out of the Beatles.” We grow and we learn.

This is what I learned this summer about growing.

Hammered into my head is a formula for myself, hard won this year, obvious to others; a formula for the success of my gardening, my landscaping, my orchard: Water, plus sun, plus soil.

Water is paramount when you don’t have any rain. The sun will always come. But the rain will not always come – at least not always in time. To put it in logicians’ terms: If the sun is shining, then it is not raining (or it is never the case that the sun is shining and it is raining). But, it is not always the case that when it is overcast, that it is also raining. Only that, if it is raining, then it is also overcast, and it is obviously not sunny.

So, I learned, or I re-learned, or confirmed, or verified, how much our plants need water – some water, which we got not much of over a two-month period. The raised beds are 250 feet and more from the faucet, and I had to carry water in five-gallon buckets – sometimes 40 gallons a day. The raspberries produced fairly well even without water. I had cut them back properly and mulched them well too. Young white pines and wild plums did well also in the dryness. I think the roots are strong and the pines don’t dry up as easily as the leafy trees.

I can confirm that our plants – except the azaleas and ferns and jack-in-the-pulpits – need sun. My strawberries were verdant, but in too much shade, and produced no fruit; my brother’s strawberries withered a bit in the drought and sun but bore some good fruit. I mulched them well also.

I re-learned how long it takes for corn and watermelon to ripen, and the importance of thinning the radishes and leafy greens. I realized how long it takes for morning glory and peppers and sage to grow. How hardy turnips and beets are. How the red squirrels can dig up newly sowed cucumber, corn and sunflower seeds, and how the chipmunks can eat the magical two- and three-leaved cucumber sprouts.