Occasionally, when we tell people we garden, we get replies like “that’s a waste of money” and “why would you want to do that?” Like we’ve just suggested selling our car in favor of a horse and buggy. Usually it’s city folk saying this, under the perfunctory assumption that the city will take care of its city people, but not always. Sometimes it’s suburban people and sometimes it’s even people who live out in the country. They shock me most.
I was recently talking about gardening to a mom at my church, who used to be a teacher, and she said that most young kids these days, when asked where fruits and vegetables come from, will say “the grocery store.” There’s a danger in being so far away from our food sources that we don’t even know where the food comes from – and, even if we, the older, smarter adults do know where our food comes from, we often don’t have much skill or knowledge for cultivating it.
This is and has certainly been true for me. I have touted my black thumb all my life, with a giggle that I was even able to kill my childhood cactus. Neglect, it appears, will kill even the heartiest of plants. And it’s neglect that the heart of the problem at large.
First, and I write this as the most honest of caveats, I will say that I am not always overly enthusiastic about gardening. My husband is the gardening champion in our home, closely followed by my oldest boy, who follows him around the beds, bending to see what he sees, craning to inspect this bug and that, begging to plant one more seed in the indoor planter we’ve allotted for him. I am there in the garden, too, of course. I must be, because there is a lot of work to do, but I take more cajoling – and when my husband discovers a problem at 9 at night, my feet have to be fairly dragged into the garden as I hold the flashlight over my husband’s shoulder, rain or shine.
But, much of our time spent laboring long hours in the garden is because we are novices. Every wilted leaf, every new bug, every spot of blight, lands us straight on our rears, and we have to scramble to jump up and find the solution that wasn’t handed down to us via generational wisdom. We feel, in a lot of ways, that we’re making up for lost time. But that’s pointless to think about for too long. What we can do is work hard, learn what we can, and hand these golden bits and bobs of gardening wisdom down to our children.
But, why do it at all? Really, why go through the effort? They do have rows and rows of produce at the store – located a convenient five-minute drive from our house.
Well, firstly, because grocery stores are a luxury. Maybe that sounds conspiracy theorist-y – since the produce stores around every corner sit in a very comfortable market. Like, what, they’re going to go out of business? No, not likely. But we’ve seen the prices jacked up way higher than we’ve ever seen before. I pay over a dollar for bruised onions, and guess what? They can charge me that and more if I need them. And if, and this is really crazy, the government started punishing farmers for farming1, prices could shoot higher, and (this is the actual point) there might just be less food overall. You and I don’t get a vote in that stuff, whatever they say.
Secondly, on a less extreme but still somber note, gardening now, when there’s little to no angst about finding food in the grocery, gives us the time to learn. I’ve heard people say that, if they absolutely had to, they’d learn to garden. But that’s a tough time to learn. The heat of need and ignorance combined is a combustible combination. With our freedom to fail, Cody and I have learned that flowers are essential to growing vegetables because they keep pests at bay. I had never heard of an aphid before last year, but after only one season, I’ll never forget them. The way they can absolutely decimate a crop shocked me. We worked every day to kill them. We researched a ton – some of which helped and some of which hurt. We never got green beans last year because one website told Cody to put dawn dish soap on the leaves, and when that boy slabbed blue goo over their leaves they never forgave him.
We need time to fail. Probably many years of it. Cody and I know that if our whole potato crop goes south, we’ll be okay. We haven’t planted that much, and we’re not relying on it in any substantial way. (And last year, I didn’t store our potatoes properly, and they were all ruined in the winter; learning to store produce is a whole ‘nother thing.) Even without the pressure of need upon us, our time of learning is still stressful – we‘re still investing our moolah you know, and we’re sweating our weekends away – but we can give the dirt a little kick of frustration and try it again next year.
Really, I don’t know that gardening is for everyone. But I think it could benefit anyone if they gave it a chance. No one really trying to garden will go into it and get nothing back. It’s hard to deny there’s a greater Hand at work in the world when you’re getting your own hands dirty in the garden, watching the miracle of ordinary growth, fighting against the curse, leaning on the Lord. For these reasons and more, I know that no one should turn up their nose at gardening and laugh when others give it a go.
This is a hot-button issue, and there are good and bad outcomes mixed into various laws and practices. Here are some articles to consider.
Farmers can no longer buy over-the-counter prescriptions for their livestock without the OK of a veterinarian, which may increase their costs of farming: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/beef/over-counter-sale-livestock-antibiotics-ends-june-11-2023-how-can-you
An RNA-vaccine for pigs hit the market remarkably fast after being USDA-approved. This article states that there’s little knowledge about the potential effects of eating pigs treated with this kind of vaccine, and that you may not know that you are injecting such pork: https://www.goodranchers.com/blog/mrna-vaccines-approved-for-pigs-taking-mystery-meat-to-new-levels
This article gives the story of Indiana farmer Dave Duttlinger, who leased 1/3 of his land to Dunns Bridge Solar (to install solar panels), and is now facing land erosion and unfarmable land: https://www.fastcompany.com/91115272/solar-power-america-productive-farmland-at-risk
Also, have you seen what’s going on with farming abroad? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/angry-french-farmers-protest-with-their-tractors-again-in-the-streets-of-paris
This “learn it before you *need* it thing is huge for us, too” and being able to grow more food is a large part of why we’re relocating from the West, even though it’s not our preference in terms of climate. A longer growing season, and water that comes from the sky matters!
I think many underestimate how practical gardening is. Even with middling garden skills I was almost able to grow all the produce we needed for the summer! And as a family with a lot of food allergies it really adds up. Same thing with processing our own meat. It’s really not a preference, but a practicality. I would *rather* buy a grass fed cow that’s neatly wrapped. But we can’t afford $8/lb! So grass (or sage) fed venison also fits the bill.
Yes I agree 100%!