Turning the Earth on a Super Sunday

La Tierra is La Raza’s kissing cousin

Michael Sedano. Fotos by Thelma T. Reyna.

Site of Backyard Floricantos, Casa Reyna this year includes a vegetable garden

“La Tierra is La Raza’s kissing cousin,” Abelardo Delgado writes, putting his green thumb on what makes me tick when I have a plot of tierra to plant. I turn the earth and plant. 

Around LIX years ago, I started turning the earth on superbowl Sunday. The practice lapsed during the years I lived with Alzheimer’s, and now after Alzheimer’s, it’s taken me time to regain the energy to touch la tierra and bask in this special mode of cultura and spiritual renewal. 

In 1968, I rent a house on Ortega St. near Haley in Santa Barbara. A shady side yard of hard packed clay gives me the joy of breaking earth one Summer day thinking how my bride, whose family did not garden, would feast on vegetables from her own yard. I find two silver dollar coins and hope these are portents of a good harvest. The Draft summons me before the garden can produce its bounty. 

When I return from Korea--to Temple City tierra--I have outstanding cosechas until moving to a Highland Park apartment and grad school. 1974 finds me digging in the rich tierra of Eagle Rock where nine years turning and planting give the soil beauteous tilth that made for sure-fire results of anything that got water. 

1985 we move to Pasadena where a generous slice of backyard with great soil and sunlight generously adds exquisite provender to our daily table almost year-round. When Alzheimer's dementia overwhelms the household in 2018, I abandon the garden.

2025 was to be the year I returned to la tierra. I promised myself, then the Eaton fire burned us off the land. 

Scarifying soil for scattering bunching onions 

I lamented to my friend, Thelma Reyna, that gameday would pass with my 2025 goal frustrated. Thelma offered me a plot of land and my heart leaped. 

A few days later, Sunday afternoon arrives to find me at the gates at Casa Reyna with tools, plantitas, and semillas. My primal urge to work la tierra, to turn the earth on superbowl Sunday, would be satisfied after all. 

In fact, I decide to go whole hog and turn la tierra and plant. In gardens past, I learned to turn then wait for the hidden weed seeds to sprout in freshly-turned earth. I will not wait and will pull the unwanteds when they show their cotyledons.

Sedano plants a Serrano chile

Step one is clearing Thelma’s iris patch to free up the planting bed. I spare two Hyachinths showing early color.

I approach the task confidently but cautiously. I push the four-tine garden fork under the rhizomes, push and lift the handle to leverage the Iris loose. I rejoice in the strength my arms display. 

I broke the right shoulder in December and mira nomás how I lift and break clods, working steadily with intensity that gets my muscles groaning and despite feeling like that vato with a hoe, in the Millet painting, I persist and get the whole plot turned without collapsing or running out of breath.

With the bed turned and its borders defined, I use the three-tine fork to separate out sinuous white roots that infiltrate from nearby trees and hedges.

Another pair of rakes and I have a smooth level surface free from extraneous roots.

Taking a breather in the seedbed

Thelma uses a short-handled hoe to plant radishes around the perimeter of the bed. In a few weeks we’ll have leafy edge definition, and snacks. 

I put butterhead lettuce and spinach seedlings in an "L" shape to define two bush bean rows. When the leafy greens have been harvested--before the heat comes—they’ll be replaced with hot weather crops or root crops.

At the far end, or top of the plot, we have a steel tomato tower with early tomato varieties and the novelty Sweet 100. Below the jitomate, a few chile and bell pepper seedlings. The peppers will be late arrivals; we’ll be eating cherry tomatoes by Cinco de Mayo. 

In between the tomatoes and the greens, we’ve sown bush beans, bunching onion and yellow onion seed, two hills of yellow crookneck squash, garlic cloves, and yellow onion sets. 

2025 is going to be a good garden year. The football game must be well along when I return to my motel room. I don't turn on the teevee. I welcome the fatigue and sore muscles of getting closer to la tierra, another benefit of a good day's work. 

The finished project, for now

I sleep comforted at being in touch with a continuous line of gardens antedating my own. Familia history extends into a rich past and looks forward to a memorable cosecha in my future. 

What happened in Thelma Reyna's backyard on superbowl Sunday reflects an imperative of la tierra: turn it and it will grow.