The Garden of Delights... or is it Disputes?

Out of the darkness came, the seed catalog! This instrument of discord, this bearer of bad tidings arrived ever so innocently in the house, brought here by that N'er-do-well on a motorcycle, our local postman.

Of course, these catalogs are designed to entice and entangle; the photographs of luscious tomatoes, and bright green lettuce subtly suggest that if you just pop some of their wonder seeds into the ground, pour water over them once in a while, you will see equally delicious legumes sprouting out of the ground in no time. Then, you can buy one of their cute baskets ("Oh, c'est mignon!" said my wife when she saw one) and you can fill said basket until it looks like the proverbial horn of plenty.

"Oh, we must have a "potager" this summer!"

"What is that?" I asked fearing the worst.

"A vegetable garden, a vegetable garden, don't you know!" She always repeats things because she believes I have the same capacity of understanding and lack of concentration of a ten year old, like the ones she tried to badger into learning English when she was a teacher.

"Well, I suppose we could put in a couple of tomato plants in the back of our garden, and..."

"No, no, no! I mean a proper "potager" with room enough for beans, and tomatoes, and onions, and..."

"Wait, whoa there! Have you any idea how much work that involves? We've already a lot of things on our plate, what with the translating work, and fixing things around the house, and..."

"But, it will be good for you. You need the exercise."

"I need the exercise? I can't get you to walk a few blocks to the beach. Your idea of a stroll is walking from the car park to the nearest café on the Chambre d'Amour."

Ignoring my every word, she continues, "And, we will invite my sister to join us."

OMG! At that moment, I knew I was doomed. There have been very few cases, in the social history of France, where two French persons have agreed on anythings; and, as far as I understand, in the history of family relationships in this country there are NO recorded cases of any sort of agreement. I could see myself involved (or rather listening to) endless discussions on whether we should plant radishes or onions.

Have you, dear reader, ever watched French television for any length of time? If you have, you have noticed that one out of every three shows has a round table format for discussing something, anything. There is usually a host or moderator who fancies himself or herself, funnier than he or she is, and the round table is peopled by a funny guy, a funny woman, a sage, a movie or singing star, a morose, badly coiffed intellectual, and someone who is anonymous, says nothing and spends the show looking as he or she is wondering what he or she is doing there. This motley assemblage argues something (it is never quite clear what it is) for hours, comes to no conclusion, makes the host or hostess laugh a lot and say "funny" things, reaches no conclusion whatever but the audience in the background applauds as if it understood what the discussion was about, and the audience at home is invited to tune in the following week for more of the same.

A smaller version of that show was enacted two days later when we held the first joint meeting of the Vegetables Growers Association of Southwest France, or so it seemed that our meeting should have been titled from the way the female contingent of this Future Farmers Club discussed our plans. Of course, I played the part of the guy who says nothing and looks as if he doesn't know what he is doing there. But, the female contingent made grandiose plans, divided up the 75 square meters the ad said were for rent, and decided what we were going to do with the bounty we would surely recollect once the fruit of our labor was ripe for collecting. Of course, all of this was planned without us ever having set foot on the ground we were to rent.

But, our plans had been hatched firmly on the belief that said amount of land was as good as ours because my wife had spotted an ad posted in our local convenience store. It offered a piece of ground to be let as a garden. The owner was a retired man and the price was 35 Euros per month.

"Thirty five Euros," I exclaimed. "We could buy a ton of vegetables for 35 Euros and we wouldn't have to do any work."

"But, it is not the same thing. These will be better, more ripe, fresher. And we will have fun!"

"No, you will have fun. I will probably end up doing all the real work," I grumbled. "When are we going to see this patch of a gardener's paradise?"

"Tomorrow. I have made an appointment with Monsieur Fournier, the owner."

In the late afternoon of the next day, our "Garden Club" visited the proposed site of our future Garden of Delights. I had to admit that the location was just right, for it was just a five minute drive from our home. It was on one of our main avenues but so far back from the street that it was quiet and peaceful. There was a small, free, public parking lot near-by, and a roundabout with our favorite press shop, a bakery, a Nicolas wine seller, and my barber was just a half block away.

The lot itself was grand. It was a whole hectare with a large house in the middle. There was a front lawn with an old, beautiful, huge pine in front and a tool shed to one side. In back there was a large section of land, sloping toward the west, bordered by a very tall hedge. There was a large piece of land that was tilled and planted and another that was not.

It seemed ideal, except for one thing: the plot that was available for renting looked like the Sahara but overgrown with weeds. I was testing the soil, or I should say sand, by poking it with a stick, when the owner came out of his house.

"Bonjour," greeted the tall, thin man whose white hair, beard, and handle-bar mustache made him look the very picture of Don Quijote.

"Bonjour," we chimed.

My wife asked him if he was Monsieur Fournier and he said he was. My wife's sister approached and introduced herself and the three started a lively conversation that would have made any passer-by think the three were old friends.

While the female contingent of the Garden Club chatted amiably with our future landlord, I poked the soil with my stick and was unsettled to see that a small cloud of chalk-like dust rose with each poke. I also tried to pull out one of the huge, star-shaped weeds that was part of the green mat that covered the plot. I had to grab it with both hands and put my whole weight (all 110 kilos of it) behind my pull to get the thing to budge. The roots gave way with a moan a nefarious subject might emit under torture. Said roots were so long they might have been sucking water from a pond in Western Australia.

I put the weed back in its place and joined the chat group just as good-byes were being exchanged. We left and as we walked back to the car I said:

"I'm glad we got to see the thing before we committed ourselves because, I am telling you, that is one piece of..."

"What do you mean 'before we committed ourselves'. I have paid Monsieur Fournier the first month's rent. The plot is ours."

"You did what? No! Have you any idea what that soil is like? You have a better chance of growing vegetables on the beach in Anglet that in the plot. And, never mind that the thing is so overgrown with weeds you'll need a bulldozer and some explosives to clear it."

"Don't worry," she said, "we will help you."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I moaned.

Tomorrow: "The Garden of Delights" continues with "The Chain Gang or Digging for Dummies"