Aaron Moyer, The Farm’s Garden

The Farm’s Garden

Aaron Moyer

When I think about our old garden, I imagine the Garden of Eden. There were green peppers appearing in every corner, tomatoes growing into the sky, and watermelons as big as James’s Giant Peach! I suppose I may be too ambitious. The dedication to our garden, however, could never be described with too much ambition. Keeping the garden beautiful was mainly my mother and father’s abode, but I too contributed to the glory by hauling the old enamel bucket of compost full of eggshells, rotten banana peels, and half-eaten apple cores to feed the hungry roots. I am at peace with my small contribution as the compost-deliverer, even if my parents are not. Our meals benefited from the garden’s gift of a few cobs of sweet corn, french fry slices from the fresh-pulled potatoes, and misshapen carrots that would make us all chuckle.

After filling my body with homegrown nutrients, I would often spend hours in the explorable forest that overlooked our house. Phtmph, phtmph, “ouch!”, phtmph. The treacherous walk to the forest was heavily guarded by thorns and thistles: a plant I’ve repeatedly asked God to banish from the natural world. I would usually sneak past with minimal snags in my shorts and find my way to the bank. The bank-- often raided by squirrels and birds -- was a hollow section of a maple tree that held refuge to my concept of value: acorns! I can’t recall what I would buy with my acorns, but I know that they were important to me. I checked on my savings account regularly, and when I filled it to the brim, I walked to my castle. Back then, I called the castle my “fort”. This three-foot-high, Jackson Pollock-esque explosion of sticks, logs, and green twigs was a place of refuge when my teacher, also known as “Mom”, made me read and write all day.

There I would sit... stomach full of corn and fresh garden picks, counting and recounting the balance in my bank. The idea of a real bank account never touched my soul. My attention span would eventually simmer to a mist and I would finagle past the thistles and briars again, push down the electric fence with the sole of my rubber boot, and run down the hill to the orchard’s entrance. The orchard was ordinary: green leaves, gnats gnatting around, an occasional chicken or two competing for the same rotten apple. But when I tiptoed beneath the leaves and the dangling of the glowing peaches, I was no longer in an ordinary world. I was in a new universe where the crunch of the sugar-filled red apples could have been heard from the North Pole. The splash of the juicy, shining peaches could have filled an empty river. The crack of my teeth as I accidentally bit an evil cherry pit would send shivers down my dentists’ spine. And the explosion of the plum juice turned my white shirt completely purple. With a chaotic -- yet beautiful -- combination of colorful juices all over my face, I would continue to find the best fruit from each tree and delicately place everything into my stretched out, stained shirt.

The Garden of Eden, the bank, and the hidden universe under the orchard are only specks of sand in my ocean of a home at the farm. I wish I could tell the world more about my life, but as Wendel Berry states in his novel, Jayber Crow, “telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told” (p. 29). Someday I will take care of my own garden, or I will build a treehouse in the woods for my children, or I will plant fruit trees that will develop into a universe of juiciness. Until this day arrives, I will delight in the imagination of the old farm