The Spirit of Gardening
When my husband recently wanted to buy some composted manure the whole idea of gardening was ruined for me. He was tired and it seemed convenient, but I was aghast. “There’s manure free for the shoveling all over the county,” I complained. “If we’re going to be buying manure, we might just as well not garden and buy our vegetables from the Harvest Moon,” I argued.
The idea of buying manure disturbed me more than it should have. With a tenseness in my gut, I felt like a line was about to be crossed. I spent the next few hours exploring my reaction and reviewing my reasons for gardening, a labor intensive activity that I’ve been doing for decades with my husband’s help.
I enjoy gardening because it’s self-empowering, but it’s more than that. Gardening validates a deep truth that makes me feel secure and cared for. It shows me that the earth provides what we need to survive. With a few simple seeds I can grow food for myself and my family. After the food is harvested and eaten, the plant goes to seed as it dies. I can save the second generation seeds and plant again. It’s a sustainable plan and when I participate in it I feel like true human being.
I just bought $30 worth of asparagus crowns because our eighteen-year-old plants are starting to peter-out. Every year I happily spend money on local seed potatoes and onions, on vegetable starts that like a longer growing season than seeds allow, or a new roll of remay; the see-through fabric that goes over our hoops to protect plants from bugs or frost. But buying manure is like buying bottled water, something I occasionally do when I’m traveling but always resent. Gardening isn’t a hobby or a sport with gear to buy. It’s a way of life, one that helps me feel sane in our commercial consumer culture.
It’s hard to get started when the gardening season begins because the work of it can feel overwhelming. My husband does the heavy preparation stuff; cleaning out last years corn stalks, hauling and spreading manure, and tilling. I do most of planting, weeding, care-giving, and harvesting. It’s time consuming but there’s a pay off to our free labor. It’s a fair exchange because the end results are better than money in the bank: plump tomatoes, happy flowers, potatoes and squash to store over winter, red peppers to roast and freeze, basil for pesto, and greens that grow well into the fall.
My husband heard the truth in my argument about why we shouldn’t buy manure. He made arrangements to get some manure from one of our neighboring farmers. But he couldn’t find the shovel, so he had to buy a new one. I was fine with that.
I live in the country for a reason. And this is it.
March 26th, 2008 8:49 am
i GET you on this one. i have a huge pile of compost waiting, seeds preserved from a couple of years back (as we were in transition last summer and didn’t have a garden)…. but i don’t know if we are going to still be in the same house this summer and can’t decide if i want to start the garden or not. it’s almost innate to want to start planting this time of year, and i feel restless if i don’t.
i’ve never had a full fledged veggie garden since i left my parent’s house, b/c we never have had space for it, but i did communal gardens with friends, and filled my flower beds with tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, and herbs.
happy gardening! 🙂
March 26th, 2008 3:19 pm
What a great post…I remember when we moved to TN and we wanted a garden. No idea what we were doing – but, it seemed right. We spoke to a local farmer and he offered to come by and till the land for us – city girls – we told him we wanted a small garden…guess we should have been more specific…His idea of small was huge…but since it had been tilled we planted it…and it was wonderful to go out and pick my veggies and my flowers. We had a garden the entire time we were in TN.
I will miss that living in an apartment.
March 26th, 2008 4:14 pm
I don’t garden anymore – but I save food scraps for my cleaning woman, who composts and plants a huge garden. She gives me produce for my efforts. It is more than a fair exchange, I think.
March 26th, 2008 4:16 pm
We were lucky that our big garden was already tilled and growing, complete with fresh corn when we bought this house in 91.
garbage for veggies, YaH!
March 26th, 2008 8:57 pm
Honey any time you want to come visit me on this farm and take home some manure you come right on. For free! Spirit would be happy to help with your garden and I will let you use Martin’s bestest shovel!
I love my flower gardens but I gave up on the veggies long ago. I still have tomatoes and cukes, chives, basil, oregano…things like that but the heavy duty stuff comes from mama and daddy! Little sis has one too so I hit her up as well!
But next time you need manure, be our guest.
March 26th, 2008 9:40 pm
Deana, you are so sweet. I called down to Joe and told him you invited us over for manure. He wants to know if it’s composted?
Just kidding though, we got some from the farmer across the street.
March 27th, 2008 8:54 am
Funny the things that can set us off, I can imagine what was going through your husbands’ mind! I recently had an outburst to a seemingly harmless question, I blamed it on PMS even tho I don’t have the M anymore…
Hope all goes well with the REST of your gardening!
March 27th, 2008 9:24 am
There’s nothing quite like being in touch with the earth through the seasons. I used to grow loads of veggies but here the soil is so hopeless, despite the tons of compost dug in, the snails are so voracious, the squirrels and guinea fowl so ardent in their digging, that I’ve just given up and support the organic growers instead!
Here’s wishing you bumper crops!
March 29th, 2008 8:46 pm
That’s very yuppie to buy composted manure. I’m glad you got him back on track. And I’m with you on the water as well.