My father viewed gardening as an annual experiment. He was a research scientist and he approached gardening just the way he did the search for causes of heart disease. Plan carefully. Proceed step by step. Learn from mistakes. Remain optimistic. Get cheap help. In the lab, cheap labor was medical students and lab technicians. In the garden, it was us.

 

Every March dad would spread out seed catalogs. There would always be some new variety. Tomato free of fungus. A cucumber that could withstand the heat. Occasionally the garden would establish diplomatic relations with foreign lands. In the 1970s French green beans became a staple. In the 1980s Asian Bok Choy immigrated. Seeds would arrive. By June, Chicago weather allowed for planting. By July, the weeds would attempt a coup. By August, crops that survived would be so bountiful that they created social problems. If you were a neighbor, you might find zucchini the size of baseball bats outside your door. By September, dad would start thinking about improvements for next year. 

 

He repeated this ritual every year from the time he moved to Chicago for medical school from Richmond, Indiana in 1939. By the 1950s I had joined the lowest rung on the ladder of cheap help - weeder. So when dad first referred to his victory gardens I thought he meant victory over weeds and pests. Sometime later I realized that gardens had been part of the war effort. Eleanor Roosevelt had had a victory garden at the White House. We were all part of an international movement. 

 

Dad planted his gardens in unpromising places. In the 1950s he gardened on a patch of land near the Palos Park forest preserve. As children do, I took this place to be magical. It featured a red caboose that served as a rustic one-room house. Next to the caboose was a swimming pool built above ground level. Over by the garden there was a pond. Dad gardened with a friend whose job was to taste new flavorings at a cookie factory.  It sounded like the best job in the world. In fact, the garden was in a weedy field, the man-made mucky pond never held water, the swimming pool was some sort of industrial water tank. 

 

Later, dad gardened near a family cottage in the Michigan Dunes. That garden really was more sand than soil. Neighborhood deer waited for the right moment to jump the makeshift wire fence. Pests were bountiful. Summers were hot and dry. By this time I had a family of my own so I was drafted for weeding only on trips home. My nephew Josh Mayers provided more reliable cheap labor. 

 

Nonetheless, fond memories of the gardens endure. Ripe tomatoes warmed by the sun. Green peas eaten out of the shell. The sweet smell of powdery DDT that chased the bugs away. On the way home there were Triscuits in the car and a stop for homemade ice cream. I was at the age where I believed my father knew everything. I wanted to work beside him and learn it all. 

 

Dad died in 2006. I am surprised to find myself still surrounded by gardens. In Woods Hole we created raised beds from leftover pink granite blocks - the foundation of a 19th century cottage near the water. This garden is not carefully planned and it's planted in a haphazard way. We mulch with seaweed gathered on the beach down the hill. 

 

Annual disappointments abound. This year chipmunks climbed the fig tree and ate all the little figs in June. They also developed an unlikely taste for onion tops. I planted a few flowers for the first time and found the zinnias shorn on their second day of blooming. A rabbit is making a nest near the garden, shortening the distance between home and dinner. So far the tomatoes are doing ok. But crows are eyeing them from a nearby tree and black spot is starting to speckle their leaves. A family of wild turkeys is planning a picnic. 

 

It has occurred to me that dad's fascination with gardens had something to do with the fact that the same thing never went wrong twice. Great work for a pathologist. Gardens are a matter of soil, sun and water. But somehow garden disappointments are always new and unexpected.   

 

Ours have been gardens of small miracles. A giant tomato plant grows from a tiny seed. A pea sprouts into 8- foot vines that outstrip makeshift pea fences and flop over. Gardening at sunrise before the day gets hot two swans fly over. One morning a coyote lopes along the pond path. Early goldfinches cheep to get the day started. A monarch butterfly searches for milkweed.