When The Beatles wrote "Strawberry Fields Forever," they must have imagined a plantation of the "Everbearing" or "Day Neutral" variety, since those are the two that produce more than one harvest in a season, thus making them last more like "forever." The other type, "June Bearing," yields one large harvest over a two- to three-week period in the spring. Once the fruit is ripe with color, gentle hands pluck them from their vines and package them for consumers to use in salads, as topping for shortcake or as an ingredient in hundreds of other recipes.
This recently acquired knowledge I learned from Clyde, the middle-aged gardener who keeps up my roommates' and my lawn. Returning home from classes one afternoon last week, I heard the unmistakable whir of a weed eater in the backyard. I thought of the pumpkin vines I had transplanted there a few weeks ago, and fearing the lawn man had understood them to be an unidentified variety of weed, I went to assess the damage.
A bespectacled and middle-aged man, sweat-soaked by the relentless sun, stood near the garage, aggressively diminishing the weeds that had sprung up since his last visit. I saw, with relief, that the vines I'd watered that morning were intact and responding well to the conducive weather. The grass around the perimeter of my makeshift garden was cut and that area between the vines had been carefully trimmed without damaging even one of the large leaves. Seeing me, the man released his grip on the weed eater and its spinning ceased.
Motioning toward a row of four vines, he asked, "How long you been growin'?"
"Since the middle of July."
I noticed bits of grass stuck to his glasses, his perspiration acting as an adhesive.
"Gourds?" he inquired.
"No, pumpkins."
"I've got some gourds growin' now. They're small this time of year, but they'll get pretty big."
"Yeah? How long have you been growing?" I asked.
"Oh, years and years," he said. "Different stuff, ya know, depending on the weather, but..." He paused to wipe his sunburned forehead, an effect of the clear and cloudless day. "It's always the season for somethin'. I'm Clyde. This your first time?"
"Yeah," I said, glancing at my humble patch and also introducing myself.This is the first year I've had a garden of any kind, limited as this one is to pumpkins. In the month and a half since I planted the seeds in Dixie cups of Miracle-Gro, I've developed a patriarchal pride for my plants, monitoring and transcribing their growth in a small notebook. I watered them until they outgrew their makeshift pots, and when I moved back to Muncie in mid-August, I spent a couple hours relocating them behind and along the side of my house. Since then, the plants have grown to be several feet long and this past weekend, two of the vines sprouted flowers, a hopeful sign that the pumpkins themselves will begin growing soon. Watered every morning and sunned throughout the day, they should be ready in time for Halloween.
Clyde took my amateur admission as an opportunity to impart his own gardening wisdom. "Well, I ain't never grown 'em but I picked strawberries over in California for a few years."
"Yeah?" I offered, curious.
"Yeah," he said, enthusiastic to have an audience. He laid down the weed eater and gestured with his hands how he used to pick them. "Just like that."
For the next ten minutes, Clyde afforded me hints and secrets that take years of nurturing and cultivating to acquire. He told me about the years he spent with tomatoes, potatoes, apples and lemons. I noticed he didn't have a wedding ring and wondered if he took it off while he worked or if he preferred puttering around his garden to married life. After concluding a narrative of the time he spent on the West Coast, we shook hands, a physical punctuation to mark the end of our conversation. His hands were calloused and discolored from decades of sifting through dirt, uprooting countless plots and picking every fruit and vegetable to be found at a farmer's market.
"Good luck with your garden," he offered.
Thanking him, I walked back around my house, wondering whether it was ironic or not that a man who cuts and trims greenery for a living has a garden of his own.
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