Uncle Peter's Garden

By Mary Higgins

Whenever I pass by a garden surrounded by a white picket fence, I’m transported back in time to childhood visits to my Great Uncle Peter’s garden. My grandmother’s brother-in-law, Peter, owned the most magnificent garden of three levels right in the middle of the city. Entering through the gate below a rose arbor was a heroine’s task. Blue-as-the-sky morning glories and bright yellow flowers danced through the pickets on both sides, attracting bees and hornets like flies to an open jar of honey. If you got through that area, paved with flagstone, and then turned right, you’d be safe from the most feared of the flying insects. Huge dragonflies, which we called “needles” in those days, buzzed over with their compound eyes to take a closer look at a terrified human child. It was August when we visited. Always dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, I became a landing pad for scary insects.

Turning left, one saw beds of tall and short flowers - lavender and orange irises, purple snapdragons and magenta and golden pansies. There was no place to bounce a ball or toss a frisbee. Turning right, the path gracefully descended in a gentle curve.

Here on level two flourished apple, pear, fig, chestnut and crab apple trees. Roses rambled in pastel hues as well as velvety reds. I recall a Rose of Sharon that all the grown-ups made a huge fuss over and I looked everywhere for a Rose of Mary. Not to be found but there is an herb called Rosemary. Confusing to a little girl newly turned eight. My great uncle Peter, grew evergreen trees that he carved into shapes, some being sofas and chairs - not designed for sitting.

On the middle level, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and white as well as red raspberries waved in the wind. What was a paradise of berries was lost on this child. I was the one who eschewed any food containing pulp or seeds.

Descending three concrete steps with its white wrought-iron, a railing brought you to the bottom where it was always cool and my mom told me I “grew” goosebumps. Pole beans staked to wooden rods wound their way to the sky; the pink beans for the pasta fagioli flourished here; tomatoes and cucumbers, both of which I loved, dangled from vines; zucchini squash branched along the damp earth; and radishes and rhubarb sprang forth.

The round heads of lettuce and cabbage filled neat little rows and multiplying everywhere were leafy greens that my grandmother loved to cook: chicory, mustard greens, swiss chard, and spinach. Open beds of herbs including sweet mint, peppery oregano, fragrant basil, and sage, perfumed the air. Squatting down to tie my sneaker, the charcoal black earth smelled like mushrooms. Pink earthworms wiggled along freshly tilled soil. Looking up, I’d see the wall of the potting garage lined with long handles of rakes, shovels, and hoes all neatly hung on pegs. Down here, garden hoses, coiled like snakes, sat next to enormous bags of peat moss. My mother told me that we were visiting Peter Rabbit’s Garden (my uncle’s garden attracted rabbits) and I dutifully searched for that rabbit. No luck with that either.

Is it any wonder that my mother encouraged me to become a nutritionist? The list of vegetables I actually enjoyed eating was short: iceberg lettuce, tomatoes. cucumbers, raw carrots, eggplant and canned, not fresh, asparagus and corn. While everyone anticipated the corn on the cob from Uncle’s garden I preferred to eat kernel corn sweet with sugar - from the can.