GARDEN RESPITE
Three women find sense of purpose growing produce in pandemic shutdown.
The garden has helped me see life and beauty in the midst of the disaster we are in.” Kathleen Robles
If the shutdown orders have you longing to upgrade your home environment, you might reconsider your backyard ... or your front yard. COVID-19 has made gardening a hot hobby. Digging in the dirt is an easy first step toward upgrading your homestead, connecting with the earth, spending time with family members and, in this time of uncertainty, ensuring that your household has a constant supply of fresh, delicious vegetables.
OSTAYING SAFE AND SANE
n March 6, anthropology professor Kathleen Robles was at a show with friends. On March 7, she was in quarantine. The only person Robles has seen since is her 89-year-old father, and only in his backyard. It’s a dramatic change from her heavy involvement in the local music scene. “Seven months of not seeing anyone is hard,” she says. “My whole life has been turned upside down, but one of the bright spots has been the garden. It’s kept me from going over the edge.”
Robles’ father is high-risk because of his age. She’s high risk because of severe asthma. As a child, even a common cold could send Robles to the hospital. As an adult, she manages her asthma, but with COVID-19, she’s not willing to take chances.
Robles’ initial quarantine preparations included staples like rice, pasta and frozen foods, but she couldn’t envision living long term on frozen vegetables. On a stop at the hardware store, she grabbed some packets of vegetable seeds, then forgot about them.
As her stores ran low, Robles decided against going to the supermarket. Even ordering produce online made her uncomfortable. “I kept thinking, ‘How am I going to keep myself and my father safe?’ ” she says. “‘What will we do for food?’ I know they say you can’t really get (COVID-19) from food, but I don’t think they know enough about the virus to understand completely.”
Then, Robles remembered the seeds. Since gardening at her Bankers Hill condo wasn’t possible, Robles turned to her father’s backyard in Chula Vista. As a child, Robles had grown sweet peas with her mother in the vegetable garden. By now, that backyard was mostly concrete, leaving Robles to plant in containers.
Robles started with quick-to-harvest plants like radishes, beets, parsley, chard, spinach and lettuce. Over time, the garden grew to 16 self-watering grow boxes and 20 large pots planted in tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squashes, zucchinis, cilantro, peppers, strawberries, icebox watermelons, winter squashes, green onions and more. Now with the seasons changing, Robles is shifting to brassicas and root crops. Some of her choices are inspired by her late grandmothers, one from Sweden and one from Sonora, both excellent cooks who cooked from scratch.
Since April, Robles has grown enough fruits and vegetables to meet her and her father’s needs — along with their two desert tortoises. Avocado and tangerines are all she’s bought. Both have skins that Robles washes and lets sit a few days before eating.
“I don’t do things halfway ...” says Robles. “I’ve learned a lot by trial and error and by researching. I love the finesse (of gardening), taking the science part of it and the creative part and marrying those together.”
What began of necessity is now a lifestyle for Robles.
“It’s nice to be outside, to have my hands in the soil. It’s rewarding to see that you created this garden and these beautiful plants from a packet of seeds ... to take a little seed and plant it in the ground and, in time, you have delicious vegetables and fruits that you can pick and cook within a few hours. ... The garden has helped me see life and beauty in the midst of the disaster we are in.”
Carlsbad resident Kathy Henry is a professional landscape designer who often includes vegetable gardens in her designs. Ironically, it took a pandemic for Henry to have her own vegetable garden.
When the quarantine started in March, Henry, her husband, and two young adult daughters all landed at home. Her husband set up an office in the garage. One daughter returned home to take college classes online. The other was furloughed from her job. Initially, Henry’s work slowed down, too, so their usually busy family suddenly had much more at-home together time.
It was Henry’s college student daughter Lauren’s idea to grow vegetables, inspired by Tik Tok videos. “We (the family) started talking about (hoarding) toilet paper and about World War II, and how people grew their own vegetables,” Henry recalls. “We have a little room in our garden, so we thought if we could clear some space, we could have a garden.”
So Lauren, who is vegan, started researching how to grow vegetables. “Lauren’s always had a science bent,” Henry says. “She wanted to germinate seeds.”
They first started with spaghetti squash, which quickly overflowed their first, small raised bed. More beds soon followed. While the early beds were simple kits purchased online, Henry’s husband graduated to building larger, sturdier beds and surrounding them with flagstone pathways.
Lauren started seeds and cared for seedlings. She ventured into tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, basil, lettuce, melons and more. Henry took charge of planting and day-to-day care, including battles with squirrels. “I gave so much of my produce to squirrels,” she laments, “more than half the cantaloupes!”
While Henry has always designed vegetable gardens, she’s more interested in ornamentals like lavenders and sages.
“When the kids were little, we had a school garden,” she recalls. “My friends took care of the vegetables; I was more interested in creating a butterfly garden.”
This experience has been different, though.
“It’s been really fun and I love
it,” Henry says. “I go out every morning to see how things are doing. If it looks dry, I water it. In fact, my husband put an irrigation system into some of the beds, and I asked him to cap them. I just want to water them myself.”
The vegetable garden is a permanent and expanding feature in the Henry family garden, though Lauren has moved on and Kathy buys seedlings from a local nursery.
Still, the process amazes her. “It’s so fascinating how fast things grow,” she says, “to see things you planted from seed come to fruition, then take them into the house and start looking at recipes — it is truly farm-to-table in your own home.”
Does the experience change how Kathy Henry designs vegetable gardens for her clients?
“I’ve always had clients who wanted veggie gardens,” she says.
“I’ve researched them and built them ... and then let my clients take them on. That’s the fun, letting (clients) choose what they want to plant and eat.”
Still, her own vegetable garden is wonderful, “especially in these times, when we were wondering early on how we would get food, and wondering if we should grow our own food,” Henry says. “... Now, I’m hooked.”