Most hobby gardeners, like myself, find themselves in their gardens at least once a day this time of year. That’s because if the garden is left alone for more than a few days, things can go pretty sour pretty fast. Weeds, pests, disease and overgrowth will overtake and sometimes devastate all the hours of toil with astonishing speed.
This morning, as I was weeding my cucumbers and studying the way one random pumpkin volunteer has grown with the exponential speed of a pandemic virus, I couldn’t help but think of the many ways my writing practice is reflected in the act of gardening.
Take my tomatoes, for example. In my mind, when I think of a New England vegetable patch, tomatoes are at the heart of it. If you have never eaten a garden tomato in late August, still warm from the sun on the day it was harvested, you have not lived. Mediocre garden tomatoes can change summer gastronomy and cooking habits. Great homegrown tomatoes can change lives. There are hundreds of different garden tomatoes (salad, cherry, cooking, etc.) and to me, each one of these tomatoes is nearly holy.
I wish I were being hyperbolic, but I’m not. The ceremony of growing and harvesting tomatoes connects me to my friends and family, both past and present. My fellow tomato-lovers and myself have created a little community that supports each other in our individuals projects. While I may personally spend hours planning, executing and supporting these plants, I know that my work is not unique. There are other borderline-crazy tomato-lovers researching and starting seeds in the dead of winter in order to be ready for the Memorial Day transplant deadline.
Two years ago during covid, a time so boring it inspired a whole new crop of budding gardeners, my husband built a special raised bed for my tomatoes that would allow them to be more fully supported as they grew. Today, when I look at my tomatoes thriving in this bed, I’m amazed at how much larger and fuller these plants have grown just because of this strong structure.
I hope you are picking up on where my not-so subtle comparison is going.
Writing, like growing tomatoes, requires community. A person might be borderline crazy to devote years of their life to a manuscript that may never see the light of day, but connecting with other crazy people (um, I mean writers) is invigorating and necessary to keep the motivation going.
Similarly, the act of writing is like the act of gardening. When there is a strong structure, a story can grow and develop in new and sometimes unexpected ways. And yet, even with the strongest structure, there are parts that need pruning and weeding.
Finally, my favorite part of writing, my holy tomato if you will, is the actual finished product – the published piece. I think every writer’s dream is similar to desires of the simple hobby gardener: to share the fruit of their labors with an audience who will enjoy it.
And so I plow away. Each day I pull out my tools and tinker away, adjusting plants and planting words, dreaming of the day when people will enjoy the the products of my labor. I wish you all a fruitful summer! (OK, enough with the puns; get to work!)
Venessa Anderson 