Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa

On Forgetfulness, Marbles and the Garlic Crop that Wasn’t…

Two weeks after I would normally plant next year’s garlic crop, I realized I had completely forgotten. I cannot recall ever forgetting such a staple of our routine up here on the hill. I mean, routine is everything. Fortunately, my source was more than happy to supply me with what I needed. Normally, I plant September 15 and harvest July 15. That has been the case for the last 20 years. How to account for such an uncharacteristic oversight. Thus far I am not aware of any early signs of dementia—perhaps that’s the problem. No, I’m pretty confident that my marbles are up to the game.

We have talked about cutting back the last several years and have done so. We have always had two large vegetable gardens. We are now down to just one, which has always been ample enough for our needs. My wife, Sandy, now has her garden, the Lower Garden, where she plants flowers as well as some of the leftover vegetable starts that I find hard to toss into the compost heap. We’ve had a constant stream of beautiful flowers from her garden, especially gladiolas that just seem unable to stop. In fact, the glads that we planted along the Upper Garden fence several years ago just keep on coming back every year. The conventional wisdom has been to dig them up and then replant in the spring. Benign neglect seems to do the trick.