A Picture is Worth 1063 Words

In the 14 months since my father passed away I have come to realize the how much he taught me, and more relevantly, how much more he had tried to teach me. Last year, in honor of him, I put in my first garden. I used my economic stimulus to buy organic fertilizer, a memorial he would have found much humor in.

The cucumbers and snap peas were quickly cut off at the soil by yard varmints, I managed to miss the window on harvesting the cilantro before it went to seed and my basil was attacked by giant caterpillars the size of my index finger. The most disappointing was the tomatoes. I grew bushes as tall as myself of beautiful leafy foliage. There were a few split skinned, haggard fruits, but nothing near what the forest of branches promised.

The garden was my father's refuge from particle physics, a house full of women, and in the DC suburbs, his daily connection to rural Michigan where he grew up. 30 years later my mother still tells the story of how he spent a summer digging by hand the dense clay and cutting it with compost to create a loamy soil in the back corner of the yard.

Whenever my sister and I got too rambunctious my mother would tell us to, "Go ask your father if he needs any help in the garden." What was then a toe dragging, grumbling chore is now a venture I wish I had paid more attention to.

So when I was staring at my tomato trees, I was trying to access in the recesses of my mind hearing my father welcoming us into his sanctuary, and doing his best to pass on to the next generation his wealth of factoids, tips and trivia. I knew there was something I was supposed to trim, but that was as far as the memory served.

This year I put in fewer plants, lost the cucumbers and peas to the rodents and am well on my way to tomato trees again. Every time I look at them I start out for the phone to call my dad to remind me what it is I am supposed to do to shift the scales and turn my thumb from green to red.

I love the back roads of Chester County. When my parents came to visit I would always take them on a tour of my adopted home. While heading out to a location I had seen when I was without my cameras, I was drawn to the symmetry of four pairs of jeans hanging on a clothes line.

They were all facing the same direction, spaced evenly apart. Clothes on a line is not a site you see very often anymore. Come to think of it, hanging the laundry out to dry was another one of those chores my sister and I shared growing up.

The angle from my driver's seat gave me the right height to see over the bed of the pickup in the driveway, and it was a grab shot that made me chuckle. Within seconds the home owners had spotted me and invited me out of my car.

I was slightly embarrassed to be caught taking pictures of their laundry, I explained who I was and where I worked and they started laughing. Even after being with the paper 13 years I still am amazed when people recognize my name, even more so when they start recalling specific photos from my career here.

Dawn and Byron Thompson saw the humor in their laundry too. I told them it was like an art instillation. He told me I should come back when the rest of the laundry was hung, each in its own section of the line. She recognized my pattern of trolling the roads of Cheshire Hunt country. Standing in their quiet country yard I noticed well tended, weed free, organized garden.

And without thinking, I asked what the trick was to getting tomato plants to grow straight, tall, single stems that produced a bounty of fruit and small children would not be able to hide within the greenness.

She laughed knowingly, headed for the house, saying if I had gardening questions he was the man to ask. As he strode to the rows of plants a pocket knife sprouted in his hand. Amongst the waist high, fruit heavy boughs he pointed out the main stem, the leafy branches and the suckers. The suckers he expertly dispatched with the pocket knife.

He starts 200 plants a year, giving some to family and neighbors, planting the others amongst various plots and staggers the planting so he has fruit throughout the summer. He trains his vines so that the fruit grows on one side of the pole he ties them to. He tires to leave the Roma and cherry plants to Dawn, but he can't help trimming away those fast growing suckers.

He wanted to know if I had gotten pictures of his farm stand. He grows sweet corn catty corner to the house. He grew up in the home he and Dawn have raised three children in, and grows hay and raises cattle on the four corners of the intersection.

We talked about the neighboring fields, trapping ground hogs, the various features of my particular model of SUV.. We all shared a laugh that my sister and her husband, who were visiting the weekend of the Fleetwood Street arson, are expecting their first child about the nine month anniversary.

He wanted to know if I had photographed his farm stand. He said he knew the economy was bad since he has three "I Owe Yous" in his honor system payment can. He says it works out in the end because, even though he leaves coins in for change, many people just leave the excess.

Dawn came out to make sure I didn't have any place to be because he could keep me there all day talking about the garden. He invited me back with any future gardening questions.

As I wound my way back to the office I found myself wanting to call my dad and tell him I had gotten the answer to that nagging question. And when I get home tonight I will be tending my garden just like my father did nightly during my formative years.