EVERY SCHOOL CHILD CAN name the four basic flavors, ticking off on their fingers the sweet-sour-bitter-salty mantra. But just as there’s a fifth finger, there’s another flavor that most of us overlook or simply weren’t taught because it can’t be easily described, any more than we can describe a cat’s purr: It’s umami, or savory. Think mushrooms, olive oil, oysters, or avocados. Their flavors don’t fit neatly into traditional taste tests, so we just say, “good.” Same with a cat’s purr.
Likewise, many gardening books, like formal education, are mostly derivative, transferring old bones from one pile to another while teaching us methods of coloring inside the lines. This is important for goal-oriented horticulturists who are all about results; soil testing, pruning just so, planting in rows, special soil mixes, and all those other tools and techniques make sense from a purely productive perspective.
But our right brain urges us to slow down occasionally, to leave efficiency in mid-stroke and savor little unexpected experiences. There is magic in the everyday, and our physical senses are ready to receive. Once you smell fresh-cut basil, just seeing a photo of it will conjure the fragrance in our mind. We need to feel the hot sun on the back of our hands, or raise our arms a bit to let a sudden breeze chill the sweat under our shirts, smile when a dragonfly lands on our tomato stake, taste the tangy sourness of a clover flower stalk, and pay attention to a wind chime as it interprets an otherwise silent breeze into language our eyes and ears can understand.
This is what Augustus Jenkins Farmer—Jenks, as I know him—is all about, and more. This book shares his take on both the left-brain basics of how we garden—the quintessential tools and techniques—as well as the intangibles of why we love what we do.
As he connects us with fellow “dirt” gardeners, the kinds of folks who, depending on where they garden, make their own fig preserves or rhubarb pie, and who learn as they go, we are introduced to the spirit of “making do” with what we have on hand, finding grace and whimsy in the everyday.
The anecdotes and people of this book are like clumps of orange daylilies, which are found in every corner of the gardening world yet are generally not sold anywhere; every one you see was put there by a sharing gardener, or escaped on its own to find better dirt across the road.
Over the many years I have known and admired Jenks and his partner, Tom Hall, I have seen their yearning for simple answers to the mysteries of the garden. They are not anti-innovation Luddites, but men striving to enjoy their lives and gardens, and share with others.
Here Jenks has finally put down on paper a few of his fondest memories and connections between plants and people. We all have these stories—my favorite is when beloved southern writer Eudora Welty once told me about her mother quitting a garden club because they stopped swapping plants at their meetings. A real gardener will understand completely.
Don’t just pick this up as a gardening guide; as you pick this man’s amazing brain, and read between the lines for glimpses of his wry humor, feel his loving heart as well.
—FELDER RUSHING