I had spent most of my life pursuing an academic career so I had missed out on some of the things which make life more interesting. One of these is gardening which I only got the chance to do at a later stage of my life when I bought a house here in Sydney.
Over the years I dug and created garden beds consisting of beautiful geranium blooms. I was overjoyed because geraniums were so easy to grow and the splash of colours they created in the garden was fantastic. If I could say it, these are plants you cannot kill unlike the African violets I killed when my lady boss went for an official visit to India.
While I focused on geraniums, my parents were more concerned about planting vegies and fruit trees. When they became older and became afflicted with myriads of medical conditions, I began to involve myself with aspects other than watering our vegetable gardens.
Where did I begin? As bookish as I am, I began by reading gardening books and magazines. First, I grew tomatoes--which became frustrating at the first instance having been besieged by enemies. If I would apply pesticides, I could not see any point why I had to bother growing them. So I practiced cultural method of control--bagging the fruits and treading under my feet the bugs. My! that was laborious and painstaking!
I resolved I should change the manoeuvre--sow ten thousands seeds and pick them while the fruits are green. Statistically, I should have more than enough and the surviving pests by the same token would have their share and the rest go back to the ground. It worked beautifully for me! Soon I was harvesting basketsful of tomatoes!! Unbelievably magic, Yay!!!
What do I do with all the hundreds of tomatoes? I made pasta sauce and freeze them, cut them into rings and freeze them too! Consequently I never run out of tomatoes till the next growing season.!
I never thought that my fine hands which I thought were only suited to dissecting out organs of insects could do wonders on the macroscopic level!.
What more can I ask for in life? Could there be something else fulfilling than to enjoy the fruit of your labour? Yes I had worked so hard to become an established biologist, but then there is more to life than the prestige of being in the academia. Thank God I realised this when I was not older older.
I am glad I chose to give up my career to look after my aging mother. Having done this meant getting out of the rat race. Further, it meant giving up a life driven by the clock. It meant going beautifully through a seachange, being able to relax and just watch the sun go by---and ?do more gardening.
In the garden is the absence of loneliness...because God is there to make me smile.
N.B
Six weeks ago, I went to Westfield to do some brisk walking then as my blood pressure was a bit up. When I was done, I walked in Go- lo. I was not aiming to buy anything, but then I saw the rack full of seeds. I read through all the packets of seeds.
What could I plant in my garden? I asked myself. Snow peas? Would I still get a harvest? When I visited Julie, she showed me her vegetable patch and her snow peas were almost finished. She said she had already got good harvest and the ones left were for sowing next season.
I thought it was quite absurd if I would still sow seeds of snow peas. As I was not familiar with the other vegetables, I picked a packet of snow peas. I resolved it would not hurt if I still sow some seeds.
When I went home, I prepared two rectangular tub and threw in all the seeds in the packet indiscriminately, not bothering to read the instruction for example of how deep and far apart the seeds were to be sown. I watered them as often as I watered my broccoli, celery and mustard.
In no time, I saw some growth. I watched the seedlings grow each day. One day in midSeptember at the shop, I met my friend Julie and showed by my hand how tall my snow seedlings were. She replied she was actually pulling out her snow pea plants because the season was now over.
Well, I got no idea if I would see some pea pods in my garden. I continued to water them and watch them grow. Soon they were bearing flowers. Hahaha! would these turn into pods soon?
Yes they did!!! Yay! Each day I picked a handful of baby peas to put in my noodles. It is now mid October. The peas are still growing taller and continually bearing flowers. Needless to say, each early morning I am bringing in not just a handful of the snow pea pods to freeze for later use. Am I not blessed? Indeed God makes me happy.
