Vegetable Gardening

After today, I need to remind myself why I plant vegetables. I'm about this close to giving up on prepping the beds.

Much of the work I have to do in the spring involves prepping the vegetable beds, and that basically involves hand “tilling” the ground with a gardening fork. It’s hard, dirty, strenuous work, and it takes hours and hours and hours and hours. I usually end up with dirt embedded in my fingernails despite wearing gloves and often manage to get dirt (or worse) in my teeth. Even after doing this for the past two years, I'm still having to remove dozens upon dozens of rocks of all sizes; and worst of all, I have to try to remove never-ending dense networks of roots --with marginal success. Considering that a vegetable garden does not produce meat, brownies, doughnuts, or iced coffee, I’m not 100% sure why I do it at all. But, I think it has something to do with a Better Self struggling inside me to gain dominance. In recent years I have felt like this is too often a losing battle, but she/we/I occasionally win. And growing veggies is one of those times.

Organic gardening, especially vegetable gardening without the use of powered tools, is truly honest work. Prepping those vegetable beds by hand offers the virtues of all practical manual labor. It requires strength, stamina, and persistence. It also builds muscles, burns calories, and doesn't require the use of any petrochemicals. The extra health benefits are especially important for me. I usually find that working outside alleviates bouts of both depression and sinus problems (both of which are chronic problems for me). Today is a perfect example. I had been feeling sluggish and sickly almost all day, and I had reached a point where all I wanted to do was lay down. But my frustration and concern over the increasingly desperate need to work the beds suddenly peaked and I realized I was on my way outside instead of going to bed. I was doing exactly what I didn't want to do because I was angry and resentful that I "had" to do it --which is something about me I don't claim to truly understand (or control). I am angry in some form a great deal of the time, but if I can somehow trick myself into using that energy to do something productive, I can accomplish worthwhile things. In this case, not doing it would mean more or less giving up on my vegetable gardening, and that was admitting defeat. That would be letting my lazy, useless inner Princess take over. It would be a couple of kicks in the stomach to my Better Self. So instead, actually fighting back tears because I dread "tilling" that much, I went out and did it anyway.

And now I feel better than I think I have all weekend. My head is clearer, breathing-wise and cognitively/emotionally. I feel physically tired but in a good way. I hurt one finger enough to make me dizzy for a minute and then nauseous like I get when I have almost passed out. I was so frustrated with the !$$%#$*@ roots I almost screamed and/or broke something more than once. I was still struggling not to cry by the time I got done for the day and came in. But now that I've had a shower, am clean and relaxed, I feel great.

The benefits of hard work in the preparation phase pretty much come to an end once everything is planted, and then I think what sustains my interest in vegetable gardening is the variety of ways that I experience accomplishment. (The fruits of my labors certainly haven't justified what I go through to get them. Most of my harvests over the past two years have been disappointments. The dragon carrots were spicy, and I like sweet. The patty pan squash were adorable, but tasteless. The lemon cucumbers were interesting, but they were bland and burpy. The onions have been uncooperative. And the list goes on. Tomatoes are my one reliable vegetable friend, and I almost cried with joy last year when I had the first taste of my first Brandywine tomato. But even there I found disappointment, because I only got 2 or 3 Brandywines in the end.) By the end of the growing season, it isn't a delicious and/or healthy harvest that keeps me planning to do it again. It's a combination of: the enjoyment of watching the vegetables emerge and develop, the fact that I was able to produce anything at all through my efforts, and a somehow-resilient hope that I can do better next time.

Because ultimately, real gardening --vegetables or permanent ornamentals-- is about hope and faith. When you plant a seed or put a plant in the ground that is supposed to produce food, you have to believe that you and Mama Nature working together can make something good grow. When you plant a small perennial or a shrub or a tree, you have to believe in the future, because you probably aren't going to see it really come into its own for at least 2 or 3 years. When you plan your garden beds or design your landscape in your mind's eye, you have to believe in the future. And for someone like me --who is overwhelmed with doubts and anxiety about the future of everyone and everything, who too often can only see the world as a lost cause and a cesspool of evils great and small-- every act of hope and faith is a triumph for my Better Self. Gardening is one of the few ways I have, at this point in my life, to redeem my less-than-perfect soul.