Susan Sink

At this point I would not claim to be a good gardener, but there is no doubt I’m a serious gardener. And at this time of year, especially, I dream of real gardening, you know, farming. Just give me two of those seventeen acres in front of our property and let me at it– rows of potatoes and beans and cabbages and broccoli. A huge patch of asparagus, sweet corn. Corn! Peppers and tomatoes.

When I first came out to this place about eight years ago, when Steve and I started dating, I was blown away by the house, but overwhelmed by the land. And when we walked out to see his tree nursery, with thousands of trees growing in rows and more behind a large fenced area, I had a small panic attack. As he showed me the deer-savaged trees and crooked trees and the rows and rows in need of weeding, the drought-blighted trees, the ash trees no one would want because of the Emerald Ash Borer, the unruly willows– and all the other very nice trees in between, I got even more despondent. I believe my exact words to myself were: “Oh no, this has to go.”

It may surprise people to hear me say that I’ve never been entirely comfortable with/in nature. When it comes to scale, I’m easily overwhelmed. I have very clear limits. Take, for example, backpacking. Back in the day, I would go anywhere, pretty much, but I wanted to do one day of hard hiking, maybe two, and then a day hike, and out. I worked my way up to trips that were long enough that, basically, I had to poop in a hole in the ground once… but there was not going to be any Pacific Coast Trail or Appalachian Trail for me. And I insisted more than anything else that we stay on the trail.

In some ways I wonder if I’m still having an argument with Denise Levertov. She was my teacher at Stanford, and she was not a fan of me or my poetry. She said to me in conference: “I don’t know why you want to be a poet. You’re not interested in nature at all. You’re interested in human relationships. Maybe you should try being a prose writer.” I pointed out that I was going backpacking a few days later.

“That’s nice,” she said. She sent a postcard to the woman I was going backpacking with (who was going to care for her dog once we got back from the trip) and closed with this sentence: “I hope you have a good trip and that Susan doesn’t get eaten by a bear.” I still have this postcard, kindly given to me by the recipient.

I did convince Steve to do a little “pruning” of the tree nursery. He got rid of a lot of crooked trees, and started planting smaller quantities of new trees. He had been at it for five-six years, and his dream of having “big trees” for sale was just becoming a reality. He continued, despite my reservations, buying a tree spade and making forks for lifting big trees. And every time he said, “How am I going to sell these trees?” or “I’d better sell these trees before they’re too big to sell,” or pointed to another type of tree that had to go, I felt my anxiety soar.

But now, actually, it’s working. He is selling trees. People are learning about his trees by word of mouth. People from the Twin Cities are finding his trees on Craig’s List and are willing to pay him the travel time for delivery. Businesses are coming out and buying many trees at a time. The tree nursery is becoming a good part of his business.

And he continues to think big. Steve’s been talking about building a hoop house for drying wood (for furniture making) and also for starting native plant seedlings. This would expand his prairie business. There’s also talk of more serious harvesting of our prairie seed, which is a precious and costly commodity. Prairies are taking off, and he’s becoming known as the prairie guy. He always thinks big, and I have no doubt at all that we will have a hoop house in the next year. A hoop house! He says I can be in charge of the seedling operation. I ask where the water source will be.

As for me, I putter around the garden doing my best impression of a NASA employee, saying: “Gentlemen, we have germination.” Looking for places to put in a few more spinach plants. Realizing I have several hours of hula hoeing ahead of me today to get rid of the weeds between the raised beds. Looking forward to putting out the tomato seedlings with the wall-o-waters to protect them. Measuring the little asparagus spears and looking forward to cutting the first for guests on Monday.

Then I come inside and read a great book, Turn Here Sweet Corn, the story of some real Minnesota organic farmers, Martin and Atina Diffley. I read about them planting their crops and growing them. Thousands of bare-root broccoli seedlings. Acres of potatoes. On gorgeous family land. With equipment, tractors, and a small crew. I look at the photos of their fields, their crops, their farm stand in Eagan, and dream. I read and know that I am not up to that– that is not my life.

It is enough for me to live into this place, to try to keep up and manage my anxiety. It is enough for me to grow the food I’m learning how to grow, become a better gardener each year. It is good, and it is enough. And ladies and gentlemen, from the look of things, we will have (inshallah and barring a natural disaster) beets, onions, lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes, daikon, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower (maybe not romanesco), tomatillos, raspberries, and many other good things this summer.

A pile of conifers that didn’t make the cut.