Growing your own

[GreenGuy]

I came on this inspired essay on organic gardening while checking out some resources on growing chia seed. The author shows how you can start out cheap and small, and wonderfully imparts the spirit that an organic garden brings to the home.

I try to encourage everyone to grow at least some of their food. I'm fortunate to have a small yard (about 40' x 22') that has space for veggies, herbs and flowers. A little less than half that space is lawn. But I used to live in an apartment, and was restricted to growing in pots, plus whatever delicious native plants I could forage. You can live anywhere and grow tomatoes, peppers, herbs and other useful plants.

There are serious reasons for growing your own foods and medicines! Growing food is like printing money. Not only can you save a lot on your food bill, you can sell or barter your surplus. By learning to can and dehydrate your produce, you can extend its life for years, giving you a resource for times when you may need it.

But once you start, you'll learn what every gardener knows: Gardening is a source of happiness. As you dig and water and spend time on your knees getting your hands dirty, you'll find yourself learning small ways of creating behaviors that are in harmony with the earth and the things that grow from it. Behaviors you'll carry into other portions of your life. There are even bacteria in the soil that release pleasure-chemicals in the brain, so there's science behind the joy of gardening. There's also strong evidence (see the same article) that exposure to bacteria in the soil enhances a strong immune system and protects against allergies, and protects cognitive functions while decreasing likelihood of certain cancers.


The main part of my garden is about eight by twenty-five feet plus some beds along a fence, and so far this year I have spinach, parsley, fava beans, onions, garlic, lettuce, garden sage, white sage, lavender, collards, broccoli, turnips, beets and kale. I've planted tomatoes, calendula, negilla, chamomile, agretti, swiss chard, spinach and radishes, plus several kinds of peppers - cayenne, poblanos, bells, jalapenos. I still have room for beans and cukes. So you can fit a lot of produce into a relatively small space. I like flowers too, so I plant marigolds, zinnias, hollyhocks, morning glories, four o' clocks, nigella, wild violets and others wherever I find a spare corner.

We may still have another hard freeze this winter, but I stagger my plantings anyway to extend their season. I'm just getting an early start. Here in the San Joaquin Valley my greater concern is the cost of water over the coming year. Right now the days are warm while the nights are in the high 30s with the occasional light freeze. My gut tells me that spring is not watching the calendar date this year in California. But we're in our third or fourth years of serious drought, and there's no rain in the forecast at all.


Working with plants over the course of the year gives a sensitivity to the various changes that are associated with the seasons. The qualities of the soil, the life-cycles of insects and spiders, small predators and pollenators, birds and different plants all evolve throughout the year. The angle, duration and temperature of sunlight change by day while the constellations change at night. The atmosphere is like a great ocean that changes over time. The best gardens are the ones that bring harmony to a spot, and participating in the creation of harmony is a habit that also translates into daily life.

I have a patch of green lawn, plus a strip on either end where I could garden once I scraped up the gravel that covered it all when we moved in. I spend time in the garden every day - as much for pleasure and for grounding as for food production. I not only scraped up gravel, I installed curving paths and carried in boulders and rocks, and tried to make every view from every angle pleasant and harmonious. Planning ahead for the warmer seasons, I can envision the yard at various times of the year, how the colors and shapes will evolve and change, to be replaced by others later on.

Besides a bounty of fresh, organic food and medicinal plants - I also have rue, mullein, nettles, dandelion, white sage, rosemary, nigella, aloes, yarrow, mint, and other herbs - besides that, I think the garden's greatest gift to me has been harmony. By having a physical place where I can participate in the creation of harmony, I've formed the habit of carrying harmony into other areas of my life that were previously infested with stress or dysfunction. And when I feel stressed, simply going outside and sitting relaxes me.

Foraging is also worth knowing something about. Gathering food from wild places is also a way of investing in harmony. Depending on where you live, you probably have many nutritional and medicinal plants growing withing walking distance. At the very least you should be able to find purslane, dandelion, plantain and nettles, which will keep you from starving. You could probably find cattails, acorns, wild mustard, watercress, rose hips, yarrow and many other wild foods that most folks would call weeds. I used to gather wild celery across the street from my apartment building alongside a creek - much tastier than the garden variety! Stinging nettles are delicious and useful in a variety of ways.


While the governments of the world are ramping up fear and chaos, many ordinary people are creating harmony in their own spaces. Harmony encourages joy, which ripples out like waves. In this sense, of totally different levels of consciousness and values between lifestyles, there's a very real struggle between good and evil in the world.

There's the lifestyle most have been born to, which emphasizes working and acquiring possessions. Most of the rewards of both are ephemeral and ultimately unsatisfying, yet the fear of not having them creates more misery than their actual lack. At the same time, all around the world, people are discovering what their ancestors knew, that a simple life that's harmonic with the seasons of the earth has joys and satisfactions that no amount of technology or possessions can offer. They're finding enlightenment and satisfaction in all kinds of ways, and sharing it in real time thanks to the internet.

When you fully understand that All-That-Is, whatever it is, is a fully integrated, LIVING system that goes far, far beyond the boundaries of all our perceptions and all our measurements and instruments, then you can't imagine even thinking of taking it apart and tinkering with the pieces, much less wantonly destroying them. This is the real nature of the struggle between good and evil.

Whatever else we believe, the story of Satan in the Bible teaches us one truth, that evil is self-destructive and produces only darkness. I don't believe in religious dogma, but I understand that evil is a sickness that can only be cured by its opposite, whether you call it light, good, or love.

Whatever is good is life-affirming, spirit-lifting, community-building, healing and uplifting, all of which can be approached through the garden gate. This makes growing your own a subversive act in a culture of uber-control. Virtue becomes a vice, and nobility of intention becomes a thought-crime. Good health becomes a crime in a society that depends on profitized disease management for a good portion of its economy. Planting a garden is striking a blow for freedom, health and well-being.

[ginnyk]

"There are even bacteria in the soil that release pleasure-chemicals in the brain, so there's science behind the joy of gardening. There's also strong evidence (see the same article) that exposure to bacteria in the soil enhance a strong immune system and protect against allergies, and protect cognitive functions while decreasing likelihood of certain cancers."

GreenGuy, thank your for the very insightful post - I totally agree. I found what you wrote about exposure to bacteria in the soil very interesting, especially about enhancing a strong immune system. When we were kids, back in the old days, we played outside in the dirt all day. We would come in and hear our mother say "go wash up for supper". With all the childhood allergies we see now, I can't help but wonder if there is a connection. It is certainly something to think about.

Gin

[LivioRazlo]

I planted a garden for the first time last year, and it was not only an educational experience, but there is a certain kind of joy from seeing the fruits of your labors. I have been doing some research on Instructables to create a cheap rain water collector with filter so that I may water the garden for free as well as drink the collected water. I also have plans currently of building some sort of self-sustaining structure out of PVC for gardening - think along the lines of a bookcase, but open and having a place to fill a water tank that will continuously drip water on to the plants.

[Muzz]

While the governments of the world are ramping up fear and chaos, many ordinary people are creating harmony in their own places. Harmony encourages joy, which ripples out like waves.

I often think about this when working in my garden. We were blessed with a fantastic summer in 2013 and I had some bumper crops. January in Scotland can be a bit cruel to gardeners but I am very happy digging a wildlife pond and building a hibernaculum at the moment. Looking forward to watching little creatures move in when summer arrives.

Thanks for posting this GreenGuy.

[GreenGuy]

from ginnyk:

When we were kids, back in the old days, we played outside in the dirt all day. We would come in and hear our mother say "go wash up for supper". With all the childhood allergies we see now, I can't help but wonder if there is a connection. It is certainly something to think about.

Back in the 1950s nobody talked about our immune systems, but I can remember my mom talking about how playing outside built up our resistance. It was believed to be healthy. Nowadays we're as worried about germs as we are about strangers. Indoors, we saturate our surroundings with the chemicals from hundreds of products. Outside, we try to keep our kids as sanitary as possible. We even carry around little bottles of hand-sanitizer (well I don't, but millions do). And we have an epidemic of asthma, allergies, autism and more serious issues later on in life. And we still don't get it....we keep on buying all this stuff that is making us sick. At MalWart, no less.

from LivioRazlo:

I planted a garden for the first time last year, and it was not only an educational experience, but there is a certain kind of joy from seeing the fruits of your labors. I have been doing some research on Instructables to create a cheap rain water collector with filter so that I may water the garden for free as well as drink the collected water. I also have plans currently of building some sort of self-sustaining structure out of PVC for gardening - think along the lines of a bookcase, but open and having a place to fill a water tank that will continuously drip water on to the plants.]

I love your enthusiasm, and Instructables is a great resource! I've also been thinking of ways to collect water - if we ever get any rain! - and I'm planning a pond with a waterfall and a little arched bridge, down the road a bit. Lots of folks around here use drip systems as well, and I'm looking into that, too. As far as garden architecture goes - bridges, trellises, frames etc. - I try to stick with salvaged, repurposed materials (free, too). I also used to live on a ranch in southern California where I had a huge space for gardening. I cut interlacing paths and terraces into an entire hillside and built spots for viewing the sky or the lake or just for meditating among the beds for growing food. But I find that even in a tiny garden I can easily spend hours and days.

[ginnyk]

Then there is the fact that nothing beats the flavor of that first big ripe tomato when you take it from the vine that you have babied for months.

[ghostrider]

I am moving out of the city , and plan to grow some of my own food , I can't wait ... slowly getting off the grid , being self sufficient ... I can almost taste freedom ...