This afternoon I tried my hand at a batch of fermented cucumbers. This is the first year I’ve actually been able to garden down in the dirt, and despite the heat and the extremely dry weather, our little ten by fifteen plot is really pulling its weight.

I’m nowhere near what anyone would classify as a master gardener, but I seem to be holding my own against the rabbits and the mildew; and turning out a fairly decent harvest.

I grew up in a little town in Northeast Pennsylvania on a quiet street next-door to a guy who worked at the local munitions plant. He and his wife had three kids, an over-crowded dog run, and a garden that was the envy of the neighborhood.

As a child, I’d watch him from my back porch while he patrolled that patch of dirt, pulling weeds and cursing out rabbits and slugs; and deep down I always knew that someday I’d probably end up just the same.

I remember one particular afternoon when I was about five or six years old. My neighbor and his family had gone out for the day and a violent thunderstorm hit. There were high winds, and his sweetcorn and tomatoes took a beating.

After the storm had blown itself out, my mother, my father, and I set to work ripping an old bedsheet into strips and anchoring everything to some of the gnarled sticks my neighbor kept around for trellising his plants. When they got back home and my parents told him what had happened, we never went without fresh produce again.

I’m often reminded of this whenever I find myself standing beside our own garden at the end of the day. I’ve buried a lot of my past out there, and it’s been a real blessing to watch it all take root and grow into an over-abundance of zucchini, Swiss chard, cucumbers, and kale; a good portion of which has found its way to the tables of family and friends. If I’ve learned anything from the people in my life with perpetually dirty hands, it’s that a garden isn’t truly a garden until it reaches beyond the ones who maintain it…