My favorite place in the garden is under the rose bushes, rooting around in that great mulch mama puts everywhere because, she says, she’s lazy and doesn’t like to pull weeds and besides which, she read a book by an 80-year-old woman gardener named Ruth Stout some years ago with a great title: How To Have A Green Thumb Without An Aching Back!
Mama says it changed her life, even if she was a bit younger back then and could hoist 50-pound sacks of manure on her shoulders and carry them uphill to her garden. I haven’t seen her with one of those lately…
But a garden, to me and to mama (and papa, for sure, because he gets to eat the delicious vegetables that grow there), is a place of wonder. That mulch keeps in all the moisture and holds back the weeds, plus it is like having a GIANT cat box all my own—except I don’t use it for that, because I am a well-mannered kitty and have my own place for that in the house…well, sometimes I pee in the garden but no one cares about that.
When mama and papa had a big, big garden in Los Angeles, there were deer all around and papa peed on the corners of the property to keep them out and mama went to the zoo and got lion manure to help. Boy, those were the days, even if I wasn’t there, but those two dumb kitties, Luna and Sushi were slinking around and I’m sure that they peed in the garden. If papa can do it, so can we.
So this book about gardening said “mulch, mulch, mulch and then mulch again” and make it deep mulch with just the tops of things showing, and you won’t have weeds and you’ll replenish the earth and you won’t need fertilizers plus you won’t be tearing your fur out over attacking pests.
Those slimy things, for example, that they eat here in France with garlic and parsley, HATE mulch made from straw (which is what mama uses because it has no seeds)—it hurts their tummies so mama piles it on. And it weighs nothing so she can actually carry the bags (ah, lost youth!).
But I love the roses most. I love their smell and I can’t really chow down on tomatoes and cabbage and eggplant and squash even though I know they slip some of those things into French cat food, which is tolerable and, I must admit, tasty when it’s all mixed up together, but a rose is a rose is a rose.
You know, people give presents to each other and they sit around trying to figure out what to buy, what to give, who wants what, but mama says that if she can grow a rose that smells to high heaven and gives papa joy, then that’s the best gift she can give him. And me.
So I’m only thinking of those roses when I pee under them. I’m just trying to earn my keep around here.
After all, mama says roses need fertilizer…
