I was in my garden one afternoon about 10 years ago when I had an epiphany(def 3). I realized that, while I might not have as much land as most wealthy men, I had every bit as much sky. In fact, I even had as much sky as Donald Trump and, while I didn’t have as much hair as he did, mine was combed.
It’s insights like this that make my day and keep me going.
Here’s another insight:
“America’s fastest growing hobby is quickly becoming its indispensable survival tool.”
Organic gardening was the safety line for many families during the years of the Great Depression. Bagged fertilizer was not yet a big player in the home market. In fact, animal manures were still readily accessible, preferable, and generally free. That’s gone now. It’s been replaced by a ‘buy a bag of something, grow in it, eat whatever comes out of it’ culture. Blech. But the research gardens at Rodale point to something interesting – organic gardening is a good excellent way to sequester carbon. Since ‘sequester’ is a popular word these days and carbon is a bad word, and, since that was a 23 year long study, I believe that is another excellent thing.
Fearing that she has access to numbers I do not, it is frightful seeing pictures of First Lady Michelle Obama looking very serious while working in her garden and rounding up a bunch of school kids to help her get it planted quicker. I understand that she has called in the experts at Rodale to make certain that things come out right. I wish she would relax a little; she’s making me nervous.
But then, if I could afford to import compost from Pennsylvania, I’d probably buy it from Rodale, too. Nothing but the best for the Prez and Mrs. Obama.
Your tax dollars at work.
IF YOU START YOUR GARDEN RIGHT NOW
you will be only a couple weeks behind Mrs. Obama and if you hustle, you’ll be able to get it in on time. Well … the peas and lettuce should already be in – but you get the idea.
I and my wife calculate that our backyard garden gives us close to $9,000 worth of produce a year. That’s a lot of ‘lettuce’. That’s also a lot of hours we don’t need to work and, given that we are both “underemployed” at the moment, not needing to worry about just getting food on the table takes a great load off us.
Once the garden is planted in the spring and the compost situation situated, we spend about 5 minutes a day working in it, never more than a half an hour. It’s good pay for pleasant work. Of course, once the picking starts, the story changes … but what the heck, that’s where the ‘cushion’ comes from for the slack years like we are experiencing now.
The jars of tomato juice
we are opening at the moment are dated 2003. The next crop should be here years before we run out. With no car payment and our credit cards whittled down to a manageable amount, those jars in the basement and the unemployment checks look to be enough for now. Like Dave Ramsey says, we ‘lived like no one else so that we could live like no one else’. When times were fat, we lived like they were lean. Now that they are lean, we can relax and live like they are fat. They only thing we’ve trimmed back on are out of the country vacations. We’re staying local this year.
Gardening “income” is not taxed.
I can grow as many tomatoes as the soil and my skills will give me and, so long as I do not sell them, they are not taxable income. I can eat free, give generously, and still eat better than the guy who is forking over his money in the market. My free food has a better vitamin load and NO pesticides. His food isn’t even free.
I wonder … does Andy Rooney know about this?
(B&W Photos Smithsonian)
