Gardening is a texture, a sign of life that grows and dries out and sometimes gets too hot and gives too much or too little, and turns different colors, and attracts all sorts of things, pests and pollinators and things that burrow, and volunteer seedlings or things that take a long time to sprout or grow quickly, or hardly at all.
Here are some of the textures present in our garden this summer, shot in black & white on 35mm film.
Bamboo
Bamboo grows wild near the creek. It stakes its own border between our property and the next, with roots that grow outward and up, not truly knowing boundaries except the different taste of the sun and the soil.
It reminds me of my grandmother’s house near the airport. Her yard was a forest of bamboo. Her home filled with boxes and her stovetop, burnt rice. We watched old Chinese action films and imagined we were the characters in them, flying through the bamboo and training with their wood.
C chops down the bamboo and lets it dry. We use bamboo as stakes in the garden. We make trellises and watch vegetables climb up them, their own action figures in the garden.
Twine
Straw bales that sit in the shed. Straw in the compost and as bedding for the garden. Straw for the chickens and as a way to dry out the pockets of water that collect and then dry out again. Straw, held together and taken apart by twine.
We repurpose the twine, cutting it up and tying it back together. It wraps itself around the bamboo and makes ladders for the plants to more easily climb. Twine is a tomato cage, and it’s an added support to borage. It holds things together, straw, and then trellises, and then the vegetables that grow heavy, and sometimes it’s a leash for June, and it’s a bright orange in a sea of green.
Feathers
There are six maturing chickens in the coop. Black and feathered with deep colors of emerald and spots of white. Touches of pink and red. Red like the cardinals and the robins that live in the trees. With wings and sharp beaks and leathered legs.
The chickens are soft and like to eat solider fly larvae from our hands, and they're picky about which greens they like. They like mulch, and they sometimes bathe themselves in it. Straw is often in piles in corners of the coop. The tall grass is like the land beyond, a tentative invitation that only sometimes feels enticing. They leave feathered offerings about.
Fur
The little action of fur, only just learning the second great purpose of garden beds - for laying about and sunning amidst its smells. June learns to jump over the growing squash. She learns that some bushes bear berries, and that cucumbers and carrots don’t just live in the fridge.
June likes the smell of the chickens, the smell of things that might be living under rocks. She takes dips in the creek and comes out covered in dirt. She pretends she’s a bird and mouth open, runs through the creek, seeing what she might catch. Mostly she catches too much water.
She likes to peck at the tall grass. The chickens like to kick up dirt behind them. June once learned this too.
Compost
Compost is the things we eat and don’t. From one end to another, it’s a solid mix of things that slowly break down and turn into smaller things that once were something. It’s a mix of color, a balance of browns and greens. Always hungry and eating the droppings from around the garden. It likes weeds and plant clippings, and it takes what the chickens will not. It’s a host of bugs and worms, and at the right time of day, it’s a steam of activity.
One lettuce leaf that wilts and tears apart and turns brown and someday might become another lettuce leaf.
Plants
The smells and textures of plants. Some encouraging and others prickly, or thorned. With distinct leaf patterns and their own shaped stems. Some like to grow up toward the sun and others grow along the ground as if tracing lay lines. They send out tendrils to feel what’s before them, to find the next rung in the bamboo ladder, or to find more space for their expansive foliage.
We hand water the plants most days and other days, the sky helps. The creek flows rapidly or slowly. It’s clear or muddied, and we find small crawdads and salamanders living there. They tell us the water is clean. It takes many things to make a garden grow.
People
Soft curves and different shapes. Symmetry and imperfections that paint the shading colors of humans that change each season. With toes that grip the dirt and fingernails that collect it. With hands to help guide plants and tend to the earth beneath them. We cover the soil with straw and leaf clippings, protecting it. We top it sometimes with compost that was once filled with the plants that grew here last year. We walk away from and toward. In and then over the chicken’s fence. Down into the creek, sometimes slipping or splashing on the way down.
We dance with each other and the things that live here. We jump over the squash like June. Our hands weave in and out of tomatoes and help them find the bamboo and the sun. We search for roots and let water pool there. Our bodies change and grow like the plants.
The textures in July ..