It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m in my forties, I come from a rural family, and I’ve somehow managed to stay completely useless when it comes to farm work. So tonight, eating the garlic sprouts we grew ourselves, I was genuinely pleased. It felt like the kind of small moment worth writing down.
On September 25, I helped my mother reclaim a tiny patch of unused ground downstairs in our apartment complex and plant garlic. The reason was simple: my father, who is not very good at buying vegetables, had brought home way too much garlic from the market in one trip. With autumn coming on and the garlic starting to sprout, my mother figured we might as well plant some of it and cut down the stock at home.
The days before the 24th had brought steady light rain, and the soil was still damp on the 25th. Even so, my mother decided it was time to get the garlic in the ground. First we worked the patch over: turned the soil, picked out bricks and small stones, and cleared what we could. The ground on the east side was lower, so my mother carried over a flat concrete slab and set it there to keep the water from running off. After that, we simply pressed the garlic cloves into the small plot.
Anyone who has ever tried growing something in the ground will eventually believe in the power of time. Of course, that only works if you’ve got enough experience and are willing to keep at it. And once you’ve touched real dirt, you’ll probably also end up believing in the power of Chinese grandmothers and mothers who can somehow grow vegetables anywhere. They’re a remarkable species. If you don’t believe it, just look at the news.
After about an hour of work, the job was done, and I was nearly sweating. I took a quick photo as a keepsake, then barely paid attention to that little patch again. Around October 4, we were already eating garlic sprouts from it. Tonight was the second time.
My mother said that because the weather had stayed cloudy and there hadn’t been much sun, the sprouts that came up these last few days were a bit weak. Their color was pale, and some of the leaves had already started to droop, so we should eat them soon. This morning, my parents took the bus to Changzhuang, a township near our county seat where there’s a supermarket with cheaper prices, and bought some chicken giblets. Around 5 p.m., before she started cooking, I suggested that she chop the meat up and stir-fry it with celery or green peppers, then add some cumin. That usually makes dishes taste better to our family. But we didn’t have celery or green peppers at home, so my mother told me to fetch some garlic sprouts instead. Stir-fried with those, the meat really did turn out delicious.
There’s one more detail. The reason we got to eat such good garlic sprouts was also thanks to the peanut. Since we planted the garlic, my mother and I have often quietly scattered the cat droppings we cleaned up over that little patch. We did it on the sly, because my father is a neat freak; if he saw it, he’d start nagging. Heh.
I should also thank the property management. A few years ago, the management here was strict: you couldn’t hang quilts outside, couldn’t park your car wherever you wanted, and so on. Lately they’ve loosened up, and now the compound is full of randomly parked cars, while the auntie who used to sweep the stairwells hardly ever shows up. People say it’s because the Jianye property company has owed employees wages for as long as half a year, and the people on the front lines have all become listless. In the past, a little patch like this would never have been allowed for private planting.
