by Linda Pascatore ©1994 The Gobbler: Spring
Bud The point is not to save money on
vegetables, or to be successful in growing everything you
attempt, or to have a beautiful looking garden. The point
is how much you enjoy gardening. It's about spending time
outside several times a week through the spring and
summer. It's feeling the dirt on your hands, nurturing
things and watching them grow. It's being connected to
the cycle of life. It's eating something you planted,
watered, weeded, and harvested. It's knowing that the
food you're eating came from your own land, from the toil
of your hands; and the feeling of self-sufficiency that
goes with it. For me, growing a garden is a spiritual
experience. Two years ago, my husband and I
finally started a garden. We got some advice from a
friend, and decided to use an intensive organic gardening
method with raised beds. We used the book, Square Foot
Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew. In this method, the
garden is composed of raised beds, divided into square
foot plots. The plants placed in the square with the same
distance between them, rather than in rows. A square foot
garden will yield the same as a single row conventional
garden in one-fifth the space. You plant one seed at a
time, with the spacing the seed packet recommends that
you would eventually thin to. The garden is carefully
planned so you only plant what you need. For example, you
might plant two square feet of leaf lettuce with eight
plants, rather than spreading all the seeds in the packet
down a row with many more plants than you need. There is
no thinning, no wasted space for weeds to grow in, and
you have manageable plot to work. Once you form the beds,
you never walk on or compact the soil. It is important to
keep the soil aerated and loose to keep water and air
flowing easily to the root systems. After deciding on a method, we picked
the site; the spot where my husband's grandmother had her
vegetable garden. It hadn't been worked in about twenty
years and was a mass of brush. It took a day to clear,
and then we had it plowed. It took several more long
workdays to construct the beds and fence the garden. See
the article, "Constructing a Raised Bed Garden" from the
Gardening Index. Next, we had to fill the raised beds and
enrich the soil with organic material. Soil quality is
crucial to high yield with intensive gardening, and also
to organic gardening without pesticides or chemical
fertilizers. We added composted manure, wood ashes, and
lime. The first summer, everything was
planted late because we were still constructing and
preparing the soil when we should have been planting. It
was a cold summer; but we had lots of lettuce, kale,
collards, spinach, beans, carrots and potatoes, and a few
squash. My tomatoes never ripened, but at least we ended
up with pickled green tomatoes, thanks to my mother's
recipe. Many things we planted never grew at all, and the
herbs barely survived. A particular tree to the south was
blocking a lot of the sunlight, but we didn't have the
heart to cut it down. The second year, last summer, we did
get an earlier start. We expanded outside the garden
fence to try corn, squash and potatoes in quantity. Early
in the season, some animal got over the fence and
destroyed the greens, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel
sprouts. These never grew back, but we did get some ripe
tomatoes that year. The herbs that faired so badly the
first year came back with a vengeance. Anybody need some
catnip, parsley, or oregano? The corn didn't work well,
and we didn't get enough potatoes to last us through the
winter as we had hoped. Overall, productivity was fair
the second year, but then we enjoyed ourselves immensely
and learned a lot. In the fall, we decided we really
needed more sunlight and took down that tree. It was hard
to do, but we justified it because in addition to
blocking sun on the garden, it was also sending roots
under the back of our home. Next year, the plan is to extend the
local growing season by starting some plants ahead of
time. My sister built a greenhouse last year, and
volunteered to be the seedling starter for our family.
We'd also like to try growing some blueberries in place
of the corn. We are going to focus on winter crops like
carrots, potatoes, squash, onions, cabbage and hearty
greens. We want to see if we really could make it through
the cold season with the fruits of our garden.
This year, we used up most of our
garden produce by the end of the period of Feast (around
Thanksgiving). We had a harvest dinner, with vegetables
from our garden: onions, carrots, brussel sprouts, and
squash. Apples picked from the old orchards provided
cider and pies. This meal, a gift from the earth, made
all the digging, weeding and sweating worthwhile. It gave
us a warm feeling about this beautiful land and our place
on it.
There were years and years when
I wanted to have a garden; but every spring, time
constraints and circumstances seemed to conspire against
my desire. I finally decided I had to stop thinking about
a garden and just do it. Even if it meant that I didn't
start out with the perfect garden I envisioned. Even if I
got a very late start the first year and didn't grow
much. Even if I spent more on seeds and materials than I
could ever hope to equal in production. It was important
to just get started because gardening grows on you. Each
year, you make little improvements and learn a little
more, and your garden gets better. Once you begin, it's
hard to stop.
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