Lament of a Montana Gardener

By David Nolt, 9-29-07

	Caption: Dark, ominous, cold clouds above my defenseless garden.

Ahh, autumn, my favorite season; the tourists (God bless ’em) are gone, the subtle but beautiful colors are changing, snow is in the mountains, and the subsequent cold is callously slaughtering my garden leaving nary a ripe tomato, squash or cucumber to consume.

This summer’s was my very first garden, and for a brief moment it held much promise; big, bright sunflowers towered above; deep green squash, pumpkin and cucumber vines crawled across the yard; jalapeno and habanero peppers glistened in the sun; and basil and rosemary smelled so sweet they would make your olfactory weep.

I took damn good care of my garden, but I did so with the naïve notion that come autumn I would sink my teeth into the natural little miracles that grew therein. The bounty would fill my belly and nourish my body through the long, hard winter. Nein! In the end, my once-vibrant garden plot became but a sad cemetery for shriveled, stillborn vegetables. Please forgive the callous pun. I am grieving.

It all started in the spring in a small square studio apartment in Livingston. I planted two tomato plants in two five-gallon buckets, hoisting them outside on the warm roof in the day and back in to the shelter of my square at night. There were also two varieties of basil, rosemary and the peppers. I watered faithfully and they flourished, and when the early June frost wreaked its havoc across the area, my ghetto garden still grew in great proportions. Yet I was reminded: the Montana weather I love to live in is a dangerous place for plants such as mine.

Then a growth of a different sort struck my living space; black mold slowly invaded the floor below my bathroom and the toxic fumes choked my nose, my lungs and my plants. We tried hard to fight the fungus, but a long, drawn-out battle with my landlord ended in defeat. We had to move. My plants and I had become refugees, or squatters as my friend says. Either way, we were out of a home. Luckily, in our darkest hour, my friend and his girlfriend broke up, she moved out and I shamelessly sauntered in, plants in tow. But tragedy would strike before I moved out: out of town and unable to help, Livingston’s furious winds ravaged my tomato plants. One eventually died, and one survived only to produce split fruits.

Life would be good at my friend’s, though; there was no black mold (bonus), and there was even a plot for a garden where he and his girlfriend had planted flowers. There I planted my herbs and bought and planted onions, another tomato plant, a cucumber plant, a squash plant, and a pumpkin plant. The other tomato and habanero I decided to leave in the buckets—a move that turned out to extend their short little lives a little bit longer.

It was well into June by the time I got the garden in the ground, and even with the scorcher of a summer Montana experienced this year, my late planting would prove to be my plant’s demise. Still, throughout the summer, I watered the garden diligently, sometimes obsessively. I tried to always water at night, though, and eventually I had my plant’s diets dialed. The garden grew, my roommate (landlord) marveled and I stood outside like a proud father, hose in one hand, beer in the other. Oh the feasts we would have, I chuckled with a Santa-like laugh.

I also bought a share in a local non-profit organic farm here in Livingston. When I could, I would go out to the Geyser Farm to weed and harvest and commiserate about the world with local farm guru Mark Rehder. Mark in turn would share his farming wisdom and allow me to take all the damaged but perfectly edible vegetables I could handle. I learned a lot about food production and food security, but perhaps more importantly, I had access to vegetables my garden would never produce.

My Santa laugh soon turned to tears. Despite my best efforts to cover my garden at night with sheets anchored against the wind by many rocks, the heat is gone and so to is the growing. I have about three winter squash, two pumpkins, several cucumbers, jalapenos and two rows of yellow and red onions all stunted, wilted and bound for imminent doom. The tomato plant in the ground is a lost cause (sorry buddy), and my only real salvages are my faithful basil and rosemary, as well as the red-bucket-bound tomato plant and habanero plant I moved indoors.

The tomato plant now has five green tomatoes on it, and I’ll be damned if they aren’t split; they might even ripen. My greatest victory, though, is my habanero plant. Habaneros are a “140-day pepper,” which is not really viable in Montana, but its bucket mobility allowed me to lengthen the season by bringing it inside. It produced seven brilliant orange peppers, most of which I used to create a killer batch of chili today. I am here to tell you they were delicious and hot as the dickens (By the way, don’t forget to wash your hands before going to the bathroom after chopping habaneros. Ay, de mi!). The plant eventually got tiny bugs of some sort, and I had to put it outside in the cold, dark night with the rest of them.

All in all, it was not a total loss. I guess it’s a bit like fishing: though it’s always better to catch fish, that’s not really why you go. My dad was always happiest fishing or in the garden, and come to think of it, growing and caring for a garden is quite possibly about one of the best things we can do as human beings. In a world where most people haven’t a clue where the food they consume comes from or how it is produced, a home garden is a much-needed and intimate reconnection with nature as well as a revolutionary act of defiance against the food production/distribution status quo.

I know I am not alone in my failures, though. Montana is a tough place to raise a garden, even in the 21st century. I can’t imagine what it was like back in the day. Even though my garden would have in no way been even close enough to sustain me through winter, I like to pretend (in my own internal reality TV show) it is 1880 and I am a homesteader in Montana Territory. Basically, homesteader Dave is done for. Winter is on the wind, no food is in the cupboard, my family would have probably left me at this point, and I likely would have spent my last dollar on a bottle of booze to drown my garden-variety Montana garden sorrow.