Louise T. Guinther

I love living off the land.

My mother laughs at me when I say that; after all, our little patch of Eden is only a few square yards, and we have to do some creative landscaping just to find a few sunny spots for our tomato and cucumber plants. But there is something infinitely satisfying about reaping one’s own dinner, even if it’s just the herbs that give the store-bought components a little added flavor.

This year, in addition to the tomatoes and cukes, which I grew from seeds, our garden contains the perennial sage, rosemary and oregano, as well as the annual tarragon, dill, basil, parsley and thyme. (Take that, Simon & Garfunkel.)

The lettuces, being fans of the cooler part of the growing season, are in such fine fettle that I feel like a mellow version of Mr. McGregor, half hoping Peter Rabbit and his compatriots will come by and share the bounty. Add in a little of our lavish crop of mustard greens and the ever-rampant dandelions (many gardeners’ nightmare, but a free source of nutrition for us), and you have a top-class, very locally-sourced mesclun. The chive blossoms are finished for this season, having already made some of the most beautiful salads you could hope for, but pretty soon it will be time to garnish our plates with nasturtiums.

Perhaps best of all is the patch of mint, which not only reminds me of one of my favorite Ogden Nash ditties — “Little gamboling lamb, do you know where you am?/In a patch of mint: let me give you a hint:/Scram, lamb! — but starts us off for the season with juleps on Derby Day and keeps us happily supplied with mojitos all summer long, not to mention how prettily it dresses up a glass of iced tea or lemonade. (Way back when, one of our strictly urban high-school buddies looked skeptically at the beverage he was offered in our back yard and remarked with trepidation, “There are leaves in my drink!”)

Then there are the “God” plants. Of course, God helps with all the gardening — His is the sunshine, His the rain, His the whole creation — but a few years ago, in addition to the things we knew we were cultivating, we discovered an unexpected gift in our rose garden: a hearty grape tomato plant laden with ruby-red gems. Since we had never planted any strain of tomato except the Early Girl, we decided God had planted it for us. Another year we got Romas — again, a strain of which we had purchased nary a seed, much less a plant. In 2022, God gave us a pumpkin vine, on which several large, round squashes appeared, but alas, they all collapsed before picking time. Last year, lo and behold, an unlooked-for honeydew plant sprang up in the front yard, under our new apple tree, and gave us two perfectly edible melons before disappearing the way it came. By that time, we’d figured out that the source of this amusing round of mystery produce was the composter my father had established in the driveway to minimize our contributions to the landfill, but we still give thanks whenever we partake of these cosmic extras that we didn’t sow but love to reap.