Maggie's Farm

I love John Updike. Maybe the most talented writer America has produced since Hawthorne. Speaking of which here is Hawthorne on gardening:

Not that it can be disputed, that the light toil, requisite to cultivate a moderately sized garden, imparts such zest to kitchen- vegetables as is never found in those of the market- gardener. Childless men, if they would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,—be it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless weed,—should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether by their own care. If there not be too many of them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit it and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation of my vegetable progeny . . .