I planted a couple dozen tulip bulbs today, so that they can be the first things up in the spring and the rabbits can eat them before they bloom, the bastards. When planting tulip bulbs, I kind of feel that quote from Martin Luther, who when asked what he would do if the world were to end tomorrow supposedly answered, “I would plant an apple tree today.” And hundreds of years later, that’s what he’s most remembered as: a guy who really loved apples.
But I get it, because who can say if the tulips we plant today will be for us or someone else, or just for the bunnies. Still, I feel good about it, knowing that they’ll sprout little cups of color if the rabbits, those bastards, just let them have a chance.
I planted garlic bulbs as well; the rabbits don’t bother with those, so it’s a trade off. The rabbits eat the tulips, I eat the garlic. We look at each other side-eyed and somewhat bitter. Still, planting tulips, even knowing you may not see them either because you might die any day or because of the rabbits, is not as heroically stubborn as planting an apple tree the day before the world ends.
I wrote once here about how a decade ago a coworker gave me a few garlic bulbs and counseled me on how to grow them, and through moves and gardens of varying quality, I’ve kept that garlic in the ground every year, taking the biggest of the offspring and replanting them. This year I had great success, with more than 30 good sized bulbs and plenty of cloves to eat or to replant.
Still, I am not a good gardener, which I blame partly on never having had great sun where I’ve lived. But that doesn’t keep me from doing it every year, spending something like $80 to get $8 worth of vegetables, and yet every year it still feels somehow worth it, to be connected to food in a way that most of us no longer are—not in a subsistence way, in any case. And so even though I planted tomatoes and got 3 tomatoes (the squirrels ate the rest, those bastards), and even though I planted lots of red and orange peppers but only got a few green peppers, and even though my beets never got bigger than a nickel and I got three sad, deformed carrots, I felt like it was, if not a physical success, a spiritual one.
Tomorrow I fire up Starlink service and head to the North Shore of Minnesota to work from my camper for a few weeks and take a stab at what I hope will become a yearly tradition: fishing for salmon (and trout) on the many tributaries of Lake Superior.
Unfortunately, like gardening, I’m also terrible at fishing, but even a bad fisherman can catch one if you fish long enough, and if I don’t, the fall colors will make up for it. But I remain optimistic: If the world doesn’t end, in my future I see a meal of fresh fish, garlic, and green peppers in some kind of medley flavored with the self-satisfaction of having grown or caught everything in the pan, with a little help from mother nature.
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