Nurturing a garden is a lovely metaphor for healing a family. In Tara Austen Weaver's memoir, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow, the comparison is literal, and her experiences could serve as a handbook for both.
On a plot of northern California land, Weaver's single mom gardened to provide food for her two kids. As a student and writer, Weaver traveled the world before settling in Seattle, near her brother and his young family. The three were never close. "If there was an instruction manual for family unity, we hadn't received ours."
But when their mother moves to Seattle, and she and Weaver find a house with half an acre of neglected garden, they share a vision: raspberries and strawberries; cherry, apple, quince and persimmon trees; potatoes and tomatoes--and a place for Weaver's young nieces to play. "Together we might be able to grow something that would last."
Shared tenacity through bumper and failed crops nurtures family insights. Ill while her mother is away, Weaver gathers greens for soup. "My mother wasn't there to comfort me--she had rarely been able to give me what I needed. But here was a garden of vegetables she had worked hard to grow. Now, when I needed it most, she was nourishing me. She couldn't give me herself. Instead she had given me the tools to be strong on my own. Perhaps that was her greatest gift to me: resilience and strength, the ability to survive."
A master gardener and permaculture designer, Weaver shows Pacific Northwest gardening savvy and a wise exploration of family roots. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco