[To begin at the beginning, please turn to the first blog posts of January 2020. Those early posts lay out historical facts, while subsequent posts reveal the soul of my neighborhood as I knew it. Less historical and more subjective, they concentrate on the characters, customs, and concerns that gave this far corner of New York City its hometown aura.]
Sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s, I began to notice the name “Pelham Gardens” appearing on maps of our neighborhood, as well as in newspaper articles and in real estate listings. To my surprise, my neighborhood now had a name, and I now had a concise answer to the common question, “Where in the Bronx are you from?” My answer had always been a hit-and-miss listing of nearby names that people might recognize: “Near Pelham Parkway…toward Co-op City…the Eastchester/Gun Hill Road area.”
Pelham Gardens seemed an appropriate name, given the lush and prolific gardens that thrive here in front yards and backyards. The name might not have historic roots like other neighborhood names, such as Kingsbridge, Morrisania, or Williamsbridge. Nor is it a name that highlights a geographical distinction, such as Throgs Neck, Soundview, Silver Beach, or City Island. Instead, the name Pelham Gardens pays homage to the long-ago farms and plantations that covered this area for centuries, and confirms that the paving of roads and construction of buildings did not deplete the richness of the soil in modern times.
Our backyard, like many others, was like a small nature preserve. A screened-in wooden house took up most of the space in our backyard, but flowers, shrubs and vines surrounded this structure, which we called the summer house.
Hollyhock spiers—tall stalks of pale yellow, burgundy, and rose-colored flowers as large as three inches across—towered above one section of the black wire fence that enclosed our property. A tangle of grapevines all but obliterated another section of the fence. When the grapes ripened, they sweetened summer mornings with their fragrance. Honeysuckle vines twisted and twined with unrelenting tendrils over and through another part of the fence, just beside the thicket of pungent spearmint that could barely be controlled.
In May, lilies of the valley bloomed in the narrow channel between the summer house and the fence. Each stem, with its string of tiny bells, emitted a delightful but subtle scent. When their blooms had passed, the Chinese Lanterns would emerge, puffy, papery orange orbs, blooming alongside the lunaria, or silver-dollar plant. At the right time, these two plants could be clipped, bunched together, and brought inside as a long-lasting autumn arrangement.
A trumpet vine wrapped its leafy arms around the back of the summer house, shading those inside from the afternoon sun. In August the vine burst into bloom with brilliant “trumpets” as orange as the August sunset. Forever after I would think of August as the color of orange. Flanking the vine were a forsythia bush, which turned sunlit yellow each April, and a weigela shrub, which welcomed the month of May with blossoms of magenta and rose.
To drive into our garage, my father used the private road that ran behind the row houses of Westervelt and Mickle Avenues, which stood back to back. Residents of both streets used this road to access their driveways and garages.
Just before he turned into our driveway on the right, my father passed Mrs. Anner’s house on the left. The fence surrounding her property failed to contain the abundant growth of shrubs, bushes, and perennial flowers that bloomed all summer. A pear tree near the far edge of the garden spread out long, heavy branches, one of which overhung the access road.
My father, a lover of all fruit but especially figs and pears, came face to face with one particular pear each evening on his way home from work. As it grew, it dangled closer and closer to the car’s windshield. Each day my father, confronted by this alluring piece of fruit, took note of its growth and gradual ripening. Finally, it reached the point of golden-green perfection.
Pausing a split-second before turning into our driveway, my father reached out the car window and plucked that pear. After dinner, he sliced it up and shared the sweet and juicy slivers with us.
Sometime later he ran into Mrs. Anner. Not one to commit a crime and fail to own up, he had to confess. “I couldn’t resist it,” my father explained. “It was hanging right in front of me every day.”
Mrs. Anner could not have been more pleased. “Help yourself any time,” she said. “It’s better than leaving them for the squirrels.”
One spring, tired of trekking all the way to Hunt’s Point Market for his annual crate of figs, my father brought home a fig tree sapling. Why go to such lengths for his favorite fruit, he figured, when he could grow his own? He planted it behind the summer house, finding room between the forsythia and the weigela. All summer he watered it, fertilized it, and tended to its every need. It seemed to settle in.
That fall, knowing his little tree could not survive our northern winters without some heavy winter clothing, my father traveled to the Connecticut countryside to gather a bushel of pine needles, which he piled in a deep layer around the roots of the tree. He then swaddled the tree with burlap, an old army blanket, and tar paper. He wrapped this snug bundle with heavy cord, then topped the whole thing off with a plastic bucket turned upside down, like a winter cap.
Each autumn, my father followed this ritual. Each spring, he followed another one.
It would begin with the unwrapping, which exposed a bony, gray skeleton. Day after hopeful day, he’d examine the dry sticks, scratching the surface for a sign of life. Depending on the type of spring we were having, some waits were longer than others. But typically, as soon as he’d say, “I guess this winter was too much for it,” he’d step outside on a warm morning and find tufts of green sprouting from very twig. And each summer, my father would harvest a small but satisfying crop.
For reasons I can’t recall (although the word rot rings a bell), my father decided to tear down the summer house. Although we mourned the loss of this combination rec room/play space/study hall/summer dining room, we now looked out on an expanse of burnt-umber, fragrant soil. Aware of the thriving farms that once overspread this corner of the Bronx, and knowing firsthand how our flower gardens prospered, we decided to try creating a small farm of our own.
For my sister and for me, this exciting prospect sparked great enthusiasm. The boards, screening, and shingles that once comprised the summer house were hauled away in the early days of autumn, giving us plenty of time to plan a garden for the following spring. Looking over our bit of farmland, we diagrammed—first in our heads and then in a special notebook—our future garden. With vague ideas of how to start, we knew we had much to learn.
Through a request to our congressman, we received, free of charge, a publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called Gardening for Food and Fun, a thick, hardcover book that quickly became dirt stained, dog-eared, and spine-split.
In September we enrolled in Fundamentals of Gardening, a certificate course offered at the New York Botanical Garden, a short drive away. Taught by Ralph Snodsmith of the Queens Botanical Garden (who a few years later hosted the long-running Garden Hotline show on WOR Radio), the course delved into plant physiology, germination, propagation, planting, pruning, weed control, disease control, pest control, mulching, and soil management.
In December we received our Certificates of Completion. About six weeks later the gardening catalogs started to arrive in the mail. In February, with proper lighting, a heat coil, seeds, and a seed-starting mix, we sowed corn, eggplant, basil, lettuce, and tomato seeds, saving the carrot seeds for direct sowing into the ground in late spring. The earthy aroma of the vermiculite made spring feel imminent in spite of the February snowstorms.
Our notebook, where we kept meticulous descriptions of every action and every development, included this information:
Plant Number of seedlings Out of seeds planted
Basil 9 12
Eggplant 6 15
Lettuce 9 15
Tomatoes 15 27
Corn 6 10
We wrote down dilemmas: “March 24—should we feed the seedlings?? Discrepancy in book about when seedlings should first be fertilized!”
We noted the date (April 1) when we turned over the backyard soil and sent a sample out for testing.
We noted the date (April 22) when we worked a 10-pound bag of cow manure into the soil, along with a 5-pound bag of 5-10-5 fertilizer.
We tracked progress, noting that in July we harvested the lettuce, the tomatoes were “growing fast,” and the cornstalks, by now over five feet tall, had “sprouted ears and silk.”
We noted an overheard conversation between a mother and her child, out on an evening walk: “The child pointed to the corn and asked, ‘What is that, Mommy?’ The mother’s reply: ‘It’s a sunflower.’”
Well, I thought, this is the Bronx after all, not the heartland. Still, I found it sad to think a grown woman did not know the difference between a cornstalk and a sunflower.
In August, while the water boiled on the kitchen stove, we harvested the first ears of corn. Thereafter, no ear of corn ever came close to that sweet, just-picked taste.
For several more summers, we planted a garden. Weeding it, staking it, mulching it, debugging it—all those chores were never burdensome to us.
Years later, the members of our household dwindled to one—me—and tending the garden remained one of the joys of summer. Eventually the house was sold, and as the closing date approached, I spent an autumn afternoon clearing away the dried brown cornstalks and the bedraggled remnants of the tomato plants. Dusk fell. I paused a moment, captivated by the sight of the pale crescent moon framed by the bare branches of the neighbor’s sycamore tree. As I watched, a crisp leaf lost its tenuous grip and drifted to the ground, rustling all the way.
I gathered the bundled cornstalks and withered tomato vines and left my backyard for the last time.
© Barbara Cole 2023. All Rights Reserved.