Picture from June 1, 2008. I'm already discussing plans for next year's garden with my husband- trying to come up with ways to use every square inch of the backyard productively, while adding more organic material to the soil and wishing I could take out a few more bushes. We'll also be maximizing our use of open-pollinated varieties so that I can learn more about saving seeds- and I'll try growing plants from the seeds I saved last year.
I garden for the fun of it, because I like the physical work, and because the best food you'll ever put in your mouth is food you planted, fertilized, cultivated, prayed over, watered, pulled strange insects from, harvested, and prepared yourself. God does all the real work of making the plant grow- we just provide what we hope is a good setting. He makes the jewel.
I don't garden because I'm freaked out about Global Warming (I'm from Al Gore's state. The fact that he's making money from making people feel guilty is nothing new. Typical Tennessee politician/postmodern pseudo-religion-TV evangelist.). They need to add a few zeros- earth's been warming for 15000 years, not 150. Ice sheets used to cover most of North America and Northern Europe, according to the geologists. The continuing melt is not a new crisis. I don't garden to get back at agribusiness or express some kind of hippie sensibility, or to be "green". Most of the "green" sites out there just sell more stuff, which is hardly "green" even if it is "organic".
I garden for the sheer joy of getting down in the dirt, watching things grow, and letting the scientist in me do something personally useful. Because curiosity keeps you young, and so does eating lots of fruit and veggies and exercising. All can be provided in gardening. And that's why I do it.
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