Gardening Together

I’ve known more than one gardening couple – some famous, some not-so-famous and some who should remain anonymous for their own safety. It’s a tough thing to garden together; let me tell you how we solved and are indeed still solving, this problem.

Some of you know that my partner is Mayo Underwood, an heirloom seed expert and founder of Underwood Gardens seed company. She sold the company a few years ago, got involved both with me and with some other writing on men’s skin care

We live and garden together and had to have some of “those” conversations before we started down this path. You know what I mean by “those” types of conversations – they’re the ones that all couples have from time to time to work out the important ground rules – fraught with danger for all concerned. These are the kinds of conversations that guys have been trained to avoid from the time we discover the other species living on this planet. (And before you ask – yes indeed the official Guy-Manual 34th edition does say that women are a different species than men – we’re not sure what species they are so they get their own)

So the upshot of our gardening conversation was that it was decided that because I was still involved in gardening, had more experience in a wider range of gardening, etc. I would be Head Gardener (note caps in title). All design decisions and plant decisions were ultimately to be mine. But as the first gardener, my Princess would be in charge of vegetables. And more particularly – she’d be in charge of seeds for the vegetable garden.

When we moved, she brought some 600 varieties of seeds with her. Yes, that’s not a typo – that’s 600 varieties, give or take a hundred or two. Mayo packed the veggies separate from the flowers and somehow “lost” the veggies. They’re here – she just wasn’t sure in our unpacking where they were.

To make a long story very short, I went looking the other night and found them. I’m a hero – gaining way more partner brownie points than I thought would be possible for a box of seeds. Had I known she’d be this happy, I’d have done it long ago. Had I known the problem I’d create for myself, I’d have hidden the darn box even deeper.

She’s been sitting in the living room for two days now, examining every package and starting seeds with abandon. We’ve got paper towels in baggies filling one windowsill and the second is lining up and we’re not even into the big box yet. We’ve got more started seeds than I have acreage to put them in – even assuming all 8 acres was dug and tilled.

Tonight while digging the garden, (she was watching the Head Gardener work- a reason I suspect may have figured in her decision to appoint me Head Gardener) I suggested we make a garden plan.

Actually plan on what we were going to grow and possibly figure out where we were going to put all of the treasures she was planning on. “Let’s have a “conversation” about this”, says I. (A conversation is one step below a “those” conversation) So we went through the list of “must-grows” – her with an insane giggle and glow and me, with a glower and head-gardener nod or three or hundred. I think it’s probably the latter as I think about it more thoroughly. For example, I do believe we’re now growing 10 varieties of lettuce alone out there this year. Don’t ask me where I’m going to get that kind of space – it’s going to be intensive gardening of a fanatical devotion.

But I’m here to tell you that we’ve taken the ultimate step in gardening coupledom. We’ve combined our seed boxes. Mayo has gone through my perennials and (gasp!) hybrids and put them together with her heirlooms. We’re a couple. Officially. Our flowers, vegetables and herbs have been co-mingled and will be planted side by side in the gardens. I’ve agreed to grow her funky flowers next to my hybrids and all is well in the gardening kingdom (note that’s King-dom not Queen-dom).

It’s one big box of seeds I can tell you but it’s only one box so we’re now officially gardening together.

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The two boxes on the floor are this year’s seeds in our small garden. (It does not include the peas and beans in this picture) The other boxes are almost full as well and these are now being combined.