Lost My Job, Gonna Plant Some Seeds

Last week, after sixteen years as a performer and a manager for a not-for-profit performing arts company, I lost my job. The economy caught up with the ensemble and there's nothing left to pay my management salary with and that's that. The funny part of this is that when I changed my job status on my Facebook profile, my personal world of friends was notified that "Susan has left her job at..." Unfortunately, the job left me.

Even though this is a tremendous personal tragedy for my immediate family (buh bye health insurance), it's happened so often over the past few years to other folks that I know around town that it hardly seems worth mentioning.

I had a picnic lunch today with other moms and kids at Wilder Park during the lunch break at Hawthorne School. Amidst the warmth, sunshine, sandwiches and squealing kids, it did not seem appropriate to answer mundane greetings of "Hi, how are you?" with, "I'm unemployed and applying for food stamps, how are you?"

Thirteen years ago, when I moved to Elmhurst to join my soon-to-be husband in the house that he purchased, I looked out on the expanse of our suburban lot and thought "Why isn't he growing tomatoes?"

The small 1920's Chicago bungalow that I was raised in housed nine people and a large assortment of dogs, cats, newts and goldfish. The back yard included a one-car garage, an apple tree, and space for a garden. My Polish grandpa grew food there, in beautiful rows, on trellises and tied to stakes. He started from seeds sown in boxes like little greenhouses made out of old windows. I remember tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, green peppers, strawberries, raspberries, green onions, cucumbers, green beans and sometimes corn. We kept a salt shaker on a shelf by the garage door. If grandpa said something was ripe and ready to be eaten, we could pluck it, wash it with the hose, throw a dash of salt on it and snack right there in the yard.

I quickly corrected my husband's lack of fresh veggies by sneaking some cherry and slicing tomatoes  into a corner between our garage and the alley. I draped cucumbers over the back fence. He was hooked on the taste after our first harvest, but not enough to rip up the yard itself.

In the meantime, I was busy removing dense shrubbery from the 1950's and carving out real flower beds to help me answer another burning question I had: "Why don't we have any flowers to cut and put in vases?" I let my dreams of a real home garden slide the day that we transported a slightly used play set from down the block, re-built and stained it and declared the area open to the kids.

I thought I was never leaving my job. The company had a succession plan that involved the founder eventually retiring from many of her daily duties and handing the responsibilities over to me. Suddenly, that is not to be, and my ability to buy food for my family will rapidly disappear until I find a new position. I have never wanted a garden more that I want one now. 

I expressed this desire to Jan Happel of Heaven and Earth Growers and she offered to share a plot that she has reserved through the Elmhurst Park District at Golden Meadows. Surplus from my gardening attempts would be donated to Heaven and Earth. The clouds of gloom over my head parted and my first thought was "Thank goodness I have more time to garden now!"

I'm so excited that I don't know what to plant. What will grow from seed? What do I need to buy as seedlings? How do you make straight rows? Suggestions and advice are most appreciated.

As I stumble to get my professional act together and find a career, while I negotiate stacks of government paperwork and internet forms, I'll be watering, weeding and watching. I'll have three little helpers by my side and sometimes, we'll be singing the song by Dave Mallett, "Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow."