Time to Garden!

After a seemingly non-stop winter of cold weather and snow accumulations that set records at the ski resorts (Alta recorded over 900 inches!), Spring has arrived with the flick of a switch! The trees are greening, the fruit trees are blooming, the tulips’ magnificent colors are heralding the arrival of the season of renewal. It’s wonderful! I do like cold weather, but even I was weary of this past winter. I say Spring, but you could argue that it’s Summer already, the temperatures have risen so high so fast. We are now threatened with floods instead of winter storms. Either way, it’s time to garden!

I’ve been at it for two weeks now, aside from other life events happening to round out the year of ballet and school for my youngest daughter, thus the delay in posting anything.

(Incidentally, full transparency, I’m also working through my hopelessness of the climate situation. It’s amazing how blithely unaware most Utahans seem to be of the way our lifestyle in the US affects the more vulnerable and poor parts of the world. The sheer number of gas-guzzling monster trucks I see while going a two-mile distance and back dumbfounds me. It’s only May and there are extreme temperatures across the equatorial regions worldwide. Much of the Canadian province of Alberta is on fire. The house is on fire and we’re sitting on the sofa watching Netflix! Something has to give.)

What we’re planting

Well, back to the regularly scheduled program: gardening!

Because the winter was so intense and we more or less had snow covering our garden plot until just a few weeks ago, I was late preparing it. We have a 20’ by 20’ bed with four raised bed rows. We also plant other vegetables in buckets and containers. As of Saturday, April 29, we had planted in the garden the following:

• Green onions
• Garlic (These are coming up from our fall 2022 planting)
• Cilantro
• Mustard greens
• Cucumber

On the morning of May 5, I planted spinach, kale, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and leaf lettuce in their respective containers. I also repotted the aloe plant and the mint.

After finishing setting up the drip irrigation system in the garden area, I planted:

• Zucchini
• Snap peas
• Green beans
• Carrots

We have perennial cherry tomatoes coming in, but will need to thin them, and I still want to plant or transplant a beefsteak tomato plant to get tomatoes for sandwiches.

Why garden?

For me, gardening in the convergence of several desires:

• To have the skill to grow one’s own food when you can’t get any from the store
• To become more healthy by eating organic
• To get back to my roots and have fun in the dirt!

I’m a Prepper, You’re a Prepper

It certainly began within the realm of preparation. Latter-day Saints are encouraged to be self-reliant and one of the ways to do that is to grow your own food.

We have lived in this house for 20 years now, and from the beginning, we had the 20’ x 20’ plot designated as garden space. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually took an active interest in gardening. Before that, I would till and prepare the ground in the spring and then my mother-in-law and S would plant cucumbers, cilantro, green onions, squash, and zucchini.

Once I took an interest, I have studied everything I can, and I’m still learning. Each year is an education as to what “works” for our garden and what doesn’t. I still have a long way to go to be a certified “Prepper,” since I need to learn to preserve what I grow through the winter. But I’m making progress.

Health in the Navel

A concern for my health motivates me. Genetically, I’m at a risk for Diabetes and Heart Disease, for one. Since the pandemic, I have lost weight by drinking mostly water or sparkling water, and eating more healthily. What better way to eat healthy than to eat what you can grow?

Many of the fruits and vegetables that most people actually like to eat are often listed on the “Dirty Dozen” list. This is an annually published list of fruits and vegetables that the growers of which bathe in pesticides to increase their yield. If you can grow these in a garden, or in containers, then you can avoid ingesting those pesticides and be more healthy.

Beyond that, I want to eat more fruits and vegetables, and less meat. The fruits and vegetables must be organic, and the only way I can be certain of that is to grow as many as I can myself. Why less meat? For one, you can get your protein from non-meat and non-dairy sources: broccoli, kale, tofu, etc. Secondly, some studies (e.g. “The China Study”) have shown that eating “very little meat [and dairy]” is good for your health. Finally, large-scale animal agriculture is destroying the planet. Swaths of rain forest are being cut down to make way for grazing cattle, displacing thousands of species and reducing earth’s capacity to absorb the carbon in the atmosphere. There is something morally wrong about using so much land and water to raise and feed beef and poultry when the same land could be used to grow many more vegetables with less impact.

It’s fun rooting in the dirt!

Because I spend much of my day at a computer, I find getting my hands in the dirt, planting seeds, and watching them grow very satisfying. The sun on my back, the scent of the soil, the presence of earthworms, it all thrills me. Each year, as I learn more and improve, I get more and more excited about it!

What’s growing in your garden?