By Gus Heagerty
I may have gotten in over my head last weekend. After a few FaceTime garden consults with my dad on the West Coast and some pep talks with my boyfriend, it became clear that I needed to rent a rototiller and till the 270 square feet of soil that make up our garden.
Like any well-meaning gays that have wedged their way into the Hudson Valley from New York City, my boyfriend and I are determined to have a lush garden full of flowers and vegetables. Think: Cottage garden-meets-Ina’s Hamptons abode. Think: The most effortless homesteaders suddenly growing abundant zucchini and tomatoes that they share with their neighbors. One problem: We have only ever really potted a few annuals here and there in the makeshift yards of our Brooklyn apartments. The chasm between our lived experience and our aspirational upstate-landscaping-selves remains large.
I dressed appropriately for renting the tiller: a beat up vintage T-shirt, Carhartt pants that I had cut into shorts, and my Blundstones—the great signifier of Oh me? I’m always outside. The look evoked a sort of disheveled, I didn’t even look at what I was putting on energy that I had long admired in local contractors over the years. It would pair gorgeously with my neighbor’s Toyota Tacoma that I would borrow to fully embody the upstate garden drag I had constructed on my vision board.
I set out for Great Barrington, having placed a hold on a rental for a rototiller that I was assured would do the job. When I arrived at the unmarked barn that Google Maps directed me to, I started to sense that my shimmering costume and carefully constructed mask I had put on for the weekend chore would start to crack. The two men who worked there were smoking cigarettes outside and didn’t assume I would need to be greeted, so they drifted out of sight as I parked the truck. I sort of chased one of them up the stairs to a large barn and told him my intentions to rent a tiller for the day.
His cigarette was collecting a long ash, still hanging from his lips, as he described the differences between two very large lawn mower-like machines.
“This Barreto is a little larger than what you were going to rent,” he said, “but it’s easier to handle.”
He stood looking at me, waiting for me to decide which machine I’d like to rent. Both machines looked like they came from my grandfather’s garage in the 1970s. Neither of them looked anything like the machine I had seen on the YouTube video I had diligently studied the night before. The guy on the YouTube video had an encouraging, paternal demeanor as he explained how to use the tiller. The gentleman in front of me seemed to assume a level of expertise and experience that I did not possess.
I couldn’t bear to reveal my incompetence, so I chose the bigger of the two. I casually asked him to walk me through the “throttle” he had mentioned…and that other word he had said as he ran his hands around the machine, was it “catch”? I asked in a way that made it seem like I knew my way around these machines, just not this particular model.
It wasn’t until he loaded the rototiller into the bed of my borrowed Tacoma that I registered the weight of the machine. The bed of the truck sank down a bit, cradling the 450-pound tiller.
With the cigarette still burning, he handed off two long plywood planks that he muttered were the “ramps” to get the machine out of the truck. Panic set in. The chasm between my lived experience and the task at hand was wider than it had ever been. What was I thinking that I could show up to this rental place, intended for tradesmen to pick up their rentals and get to work, and assume I’d be able to handle it?
As I was driving slowly home on 23, terrified the machine would plunge through the truck window, I began to whimper like a little kid hoping someone would come save me. Was my dad going to instruct me on how to get this machine out of the truck over FaceTime? We don’t even have WiFi out in the yard. I resolved to get home and tell my boyfriend that it’s a bust, and I would need to drive right back and return it.
We had plans to plant six varieties of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers. Working back from the Fourth of July, we needed these veggies in the ground if they were going to be the centerpiece of our grilling when we hosted everyone for a barbecue! And the lettuce! How would we get the lettuce to its mature size so that we could traipse out in the evening to cut leaves for an impromptu salad? The fantasy was meeting reality and I was devastated.
But when I got home, there was our lawn guy, Brian. He had dropped by to check on something and must have seen my stricken face because he jumped right in and offered to help unload the tiller and show me how to use it. Thank you for rescuing me, Brian!
Now, the tomatoes are climbing steadily and the squash is making a run up the metal trellis we put in place. Food harvested from our garden will soon be hitting the table and wowing our dinner guests. My fantasy of being a Berkshires farm-to-table gardener was fully restored.
