The Weirdo Neighbors

I know we celebrate the New Year in January, but to me, the real new year begins in spring. I have long been a gardener, and have come from a long line of people who like to work in the soil. So much so, “Gardner” is my maiden name.

In the northern Midwest, this requires unending patience. Though I have a legion of tiny tomato and pepper plants under grow lights in my basement, it will be another month at least before they will get dug into the ground. I dream of slicing into the first fat heirloom tomato, but I know it will be July by the time they really make an appearance. I await making salsa and homemade pizza sauce, and having backyard parties where I fire up the pizza oven and enjoy the company of good friends. In the fall, I will dry the spice peppers, and ferment a variety of homemade hot sauces.

In addition to the peppers and tomatoes, I grow just about everything else I can get my hands on. In fact, I have landscaped my yard with mostly edible plants. Of course, I also have many native flowers as well, and pack in a great variety of medicinal and culinary herbs for good measure.

Due to the presence of a front yard vegetable garden, my son lovingly refers to us as “The wierdo neighbors”.

So, I asked him, “The good kind of weirdo?”

“Yeah.” He said. “Besides, we make the best pickles and nobody complains about that.”

True.

We live in a post WWII, working-class neighborhood. There are no HOA’s. Our house is small and unglamorous.

Our neighbors are mostly retired empty nesters, pretty conventional. Their tiny yards boast lush green grass framed by evergreen bushes and a few hostas. There are large oak trees speckled throughout the grid of homes, that drop mountains of leaves in the fall and push up the sidewalk with their roots.

It is a very normal, very midwestern, very American place.

Over the years of living here, we have transformed our yard from patchy grass into a lush paradise.

I’ve got to tell you, when I first decided to put raised beds in my front yard and tomatoes in my flower beds, I thought my neighbors might flip out. I was nervous. Afraid of what people might think. Nobody on this block ever colored outside the lines. Everyone did what everyone else was doing.

I looked up my town bylaws to be sure there weren’t any rules against it. There weren’t. Which meant that I could garden to my heart’s content. Still, I hemmed and hawed. I waited. I worried what the neighbors would say. I internally battled between what I wanted and the status quo.

Ultimately, my DNA won that battle. The innate drive to get dirt under my fingernails thrust me into action.

My husband and I tore out the grass, put down weed paper, then raised beds. We got truckload after truckload of free compost from our county and filled the beds to the brim. We built a two-bin compost pile, and created a trellising system. We installed a computer-controlled irrigation grid.

And I planted until I was sunburnt. All the while feeling slightly nervous that my neighbors would complain to the city. I worried that I had upset some unspoken rule. I wondered what people were saying.

But I eventually got distracted from worrying when something very interesting started to happen. Nature began to show up.

Prior to creating my wild weirdo cottage garden, I would be hard-pressed to see much more than a squirrel and a few sparrows. Now, we have a little bit of everything. A billion types of butterflies, honeybees, mason bees, bumblebees.  We have goldfinches and purple finches. There are piliated woodpeckers and hummingbirds and orioles. Praying mantises abound, as do earthworms.

Just the other day, a mating pair of ducks strolled around my yard looking for a good nesting spot. Some rabbits have had a litter in one of the raised beds. And, opossums and racoons stroll through at night, looking for a snack.  

And, something else showed up too. No, not code enforcement, thankfully. Community.

My neighbors, it seems, got mighty curious about the local weirdos.  They started strolling by. People I had never met before would stop and ask me what I was growing. I handed them zucchini and basil and tomatoes and mint and extra plants. We would chat a bit and get to know each other.

This happened nearly every day in the summer.

And I learned something. A lot of the people who stopped to talk, they too wanted a garden. But they didn’t see how. Sure, there were people who had never gardened before, so they didn’t know where to start. But the majority of the people I encountered were simply too afraid to start. The only place to put a garden would be in their front yard and, well, they just weren’t sure they could.

But I could tell that they longed to do the very thing that I was doing.

I’m happy to say, that as the years have gone by, I’ve noticed a few more raised beds popping up around town. Some of them in front yards, like mine. Some of them in side or back yards. Even one on the flat top roof of an attached garage!

It seems I was not the only one who felt the need to get their hands in the good earth. And the more I thought about it, lawns haven’t been the “conventional” thing for all that long. While I like a good bit of lush lawn for a picnic or a field for playing sports, I have let go of my need to fit in to the neighborhood’s idea of a perfect yard.

Today, I head out to plant some cold weather things. I’ll sow some lettuce between the rows of sprouting garlic. I’ll start some green onions and cabbage and kale and swiss chard in little pots.

And I’ll gladly be the biggest, happiest, weirdo on the block.