Things are growing. When we weren’t sure if we’d make it to Hungary in time for planting season, Wanja often reminisced and longed for his garden. This looked like a frequent repetition of sentences like, “Oh, that’s growing in my garden," "I miss my garden," "You should see the cherries in my garden," "I cook from my garden,” and so on and so forth. When we finally arrived in mid-June, some things had survived without any care during the 7 months they were alone—raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, black currants, the cherries (sour, sweet, and small), all the fruit trees, ruccola, parsley, rosemary, estragon, asparagus, and one artichoke. The ground was overtaken by grass and weeds and flowers that Wanja cleared in a few small big actions when we arrived. Then, he prepared the beds.
With holy luck or divine intervention or great timing or all of them, our arrival in Döröske and Spring weather gave us the green light to plant. Wanja consulted his Maria Thune gardening book—a gardener's bible of sorts—and we/he planted things throughout the week: tomatoes, chilis, paprika, basil, zucchini, cucumber, kale, parsley, celery, eggplants. Then we seeded cilantro and fennel and radish and beets and different greens all over. Since we did arrive on the later side, Wanja made a few different gardener’s potions to give them a boost—in my eyes, a witch’s brew. He’s been daily alternating foods like algae, pond water, a nettle brew, and a hormone stimulator made from willow and elderflower to give to the plants—and they’re working.
The gardening world is new for me. I’m really not sure if I ever saw a garden growing up in Palm Desert, CA. The closest experience I have is a memory of pulling oranges off the trees in my neighborhood with a large wooden stick and something similar to a metal baseball mitt on the end of it. Let's say I can't promise no trees were harmed in the process of my picking. I also remember a biology teacher in high school that tried to get us up out of the classroom and into nature by having us document wildflowers in our surrounding. It was a beautiful initiative, but I cheated my way through that project by stealing photographs from friends on account of having no attention span or interest. I never got to see things grow and my family really wasn’t the “earthy” type. We didn’t camp or ride bikes or go hiking or build fires. We barbecued in our backyard, yes, and I often heard stories about “simpler times” in my parent’s hometown of Mostar but, I didn’t experience much of that same lifestyle. We spent more time in Macy's, air-conditioned shopping malls, the most frequented tourist spots of Southern California, and pools. All this to say, it's new for me in my 30th year of life, but I'm open and curious and excited to learn.
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