Planting and a hidden economy

It's almost 1am. My circadian rhythm is still off, and I find myself waking up late, staying up later, and napping somewhere in between. But at least there is sun today. R and I postponed going to Geneva until later this week, opting to work on the garden and researching French language classes instead.

How does our garden grow?
Neighbor P's rototiller did a great job of turning over the grass, weeds, and compacted soil to unearth the black gold in our vegetable patch. Life was teeming underneath the super aerated rich soil—in addition to lots of worms, there were snails, ants, and beetles including one beautiful metallic green/blue/yellow beetle.

As a technical project manager who works with computers all day (sometimes 10-16 hours a day), I love sharing this garden project with R and using my hands to work something other than a keyboard and mouse. While R raked the soil and laid down large rectangular stones for a walking path, I weeded and plucked huge stones that he overturned. Then we measured the spacing, planted, and gave each plant a good gentle watering before calling it a day. I don't know what it is, but it feels great being outside and working the land...digging your hands into the soil...knowing that in days and months, your efforts will pay off in spades. I think one of life's great joys is picking your own food from your own garden. Have you ever tasted/smelled a tomato picked fresh from a vine? There is so much tomato goodness in it...it comes close to heaven on earth, at least for me.

After today's efforts, this is what we ended up with: In two rows, tomatoes; in another row, 3 Japanese eggplants and 1 zucchini plant; another tidy row of lettuces, red variety. The strawberries were planted next to the irises, which are across from the fuschia peonies in the border garden. There's still plenty of room left for the lettuce, beets, corinader, basil, leeks that are in the process of germination. Yesterday I bought seed packets for broccoli, a melon called Charentais (resembles a small cantaloupe), and Scorsonere which R says is like asparagus, if asparagus were dark red, bordering on a black color.

In a few weeks I can plant the seeds I'm currently germinating. Meanwhile I may have to buy more plants. There's still plenty of space, so R says we could plant more if we wanted! The idea is tempting because whatever we can't eat in season, we'll pickle, make into sauce, or freeze. Or we'll use our extra harvest to barter too. We'll certainly have more than enough chicken eggs. Did I mention that R and I hope to keep chickens?

A note about zucchinis: Last year in my Somerville garden I learned my lesson after a huge harvest from 6 enormous zucchini plants. Highly prolific, one, maybe two plants is sufficient for a family of four. By myself, I couldn't eat all the zucchinis—and in the end, I couldn't even stand looking at them. After gifting tons of zucchini blossoms and zucchinis to friends, family and coworkers, I literally starting giving them away on the street. Neighbors and random strangers were delighted to grab them out of the boxes I left outside my front stoop. What to do with lots of zucchinis? Zucchini kimchee! Korean pancakes with zucchini. Zucchini bread. My friend M gave me a small zucchini cook-booklet..and it came in handy!

ON MY FRENCH NEIGHBORS and a HIDDEN ECONOMY
While R and I were in the garden today, we chatted with two of our neighbors. One neighbor, a retiree in his 70s reached over for a handshake and a hello when he spotted R and I in the backyard. His house and garden borders ours in the back, and it is a marvel to look at. Our little vegetable garden pales in comparison to this guy's victory garden. To count, he has 42 lettuces, at least as many potatoes, not to mention the insane number of tomato, leeks, and carrot plants that are neatly planted. R says he's been farming for years and he shares his bounty with his big clan. Anything extra is used for bartering.

The other neighbor P, the one who tilled our plot with his rototiller, is also part of this hidden economy. Retired from the construction industry, he now devotes his time to collecting and selling antiques, farming year round, hunting in the fall, and keeping his chickens and bunnies for eggs and meat, respectively. Neighbor P has an equally impressive little farm right next to us, and a second larger garden nearby. In February when I made my first visit here, P invited us into his cave where he keeps an impressive stockpile. Let's just say this man won't be short of potatoes or wine any time soon. There are rows upon rows of wine, homemade alcohol from different berries, fruit, and herbs, including cherry wine made from R's griotte cerisiers, and bushels of potatoes and root vegetables.

Today neighbor P showed us his tiered garden with rows and rows of pommes des terres. From my vantage point, I could survey his whole garden along with the chickens and rabbits hopping happily outside. Monster bunny, the giant female bunny used for mating, was nowhere in sight. She reminds me of the rabbits in Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit. While neighbor P was showing his garden, yet another neighbor ML was waving at us from his vegetable patch. Another retired French man. Hmm...maybe my sis is right and I am entering into an early retirement. If this is retirement, then I think I like it.

While gardening is fun, tomorrow I'm focusing on updating my resume. So I can send it out to some of you to review. R tells me that my current American style format is fine for the U.S. job market, but in Geneva, I'll have to update it to the Swiss-French format, which includes adding a picture, birth date, marital status, and other kinds of personal information. Since this is my first time adapting my resume to an international style, does anyone have pointers for me? Thanks in advance!