A Girl’s Garden
Robert Frost (from Mountain Interval, 1920)
A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, “Why not?”
In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, “Just it.”
And he said, “That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm.”
It was not enough of a garden,
Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don’t mind now.
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load.
And hid from anyone passing.
And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
Or at least may be.
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, “I know!
It’s as when I was a farmer——”
Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
Weekly Update:
The garden tower is providing our lettuce, spinach, bok choy, swiss chard, cabbage, kale and soon our fennel.
The beans and peas are growing taller by the day and will soon provide a welcome addition to our table.
The tomatoes and tomatillos are growing taller and I had to put in the tomato cages. I’m hoping they hold up to the weight since they are not in the ground. Surprisingly the ph is staying within range even with all of the rain. I like this kind of gardening. 🙂
They survived the strong storms, high winds and hail the last few days. The old garden holding the radishes, onions, carrots and beets is already providing radishes for our salads.
