TO TILL OR NOT TO TILL

  Phew!  I was really worried there for a moment. 

When I first embarked – mentally - on this project of growing my own dinner instead of a lawn in my front garden, I didn’t bother thinking about all the ins and outs of the venture.  I never do.  You see, first I get an idea like say… going to India –  see www.wifemotherseeker.blogspot.com  for more on that – or growing vegetables in suburban New York, then I tell all and sundry, make a big thing about it and then I panic.  Yes, I panic, because I get overwhelmed by the scale of what I want to accomplish.

  The thing is, I have no green fingers and after pulling a few weeds, I get tired. I am not an outdoorsy person and I am not very fond of exercise.   So, can you imagine how I feel that no one has come forward brandishing their shovels and hoes saying that if I supply my wish list, they’ll do all the work? My wish list is, by the way, all ready in my head: eggplants, you can cook them a la parmiggiana, or make caponatas and spreads with them, for example.  Heirloom tomatoes of course.  Zucchine, green beans, spring onions, corn on the cob, potatoes and sweet potatoes, different kinds of squash, and what else, oh yes, onions, garlic, chard, parsnips, maybe broccoli rabe, and of course plenty of lettuces.

 And so it’ll just be down to my husband and I (mainly my husband).  If that alone wasn’t bad enough, I discovered that growing vegetables involves a lot more than digging a hole somewhere in the lawn and planting a row of potatoes, as I had first thought.  No, no, the soil has to be tilled first.  In fact, as my mother explained, because this soil has lain fallow for goodness knows how long (not been cultivated), it will have to be tilled more than once.  To be honest with you I didn’t even know what tilling meant, but I now understand that tilling breaks up the soil, making it soft and allowing it to breath.  So, that’s tilling, but then, because we live with deer and other animals nearby, the plot has to be fenced as well as tilled and also mulched regularly.  And mulching has nothing to do with munching as I used to think, but is what you do to stop weeds from choking your crop.

  Well, as I said at the beginning, I was worried and wondered if I was up to the task.  Having even started a blog on the subject, I had left myself with no choice (and that is how I do things) but to go forward.  Still, we live in such a benign Universe, that when you put the energy of an idea out there, whatever you need to manifest it comes to you.

  And there I was, at a retreat last week (which is why I am a bit late with my postings), waiting in line to use the computer, when I bumped into someone I had met in India this winter when on my spiritual boot camp.  On more than one occasion this woman and I had slept on the same floor but never spoken more than a few words to each other.  On this occasion too we weren’t saying very much, when someone else joined the line and asked me how my book was coming along.

“Well, it seems to have developed a new plot,” I replied.  “It’s a long story actually, but I am going to grow vegetables in my front garden now.”

“I grow vegetables.  I grow a lot of vegetables in my garden in Canada.”

Well I never.  This was from the quiet woman I had met in India. 

“Do you really? What do you grow?” I asked.
“Oh, all sorts.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, onions, squash.”
“What about sweet potatoes?”

“No, I don’t grow them.”

“I want to.  My family really likes sweet potatoes.”

Then I shared with her my worries about being up to the job.  The need for tilling, mulching and building a fence chief amongst them.

And that is when she told me about raised beds.  A raised bed is like a large planter without a bottom and you fill it with dead leaves, soil and compost if you like and then you plant your vegetables.  Now, I think you’ll agree that this is a much more manageable project for the likes of my husband and I.  It also means that we can protect the beds with simple wire fencing.  Isn’t that cool?

  So we are all set, or at least we will be by the time the planting season comes around.  And that will not be until May of next year.  That’s right, almost a year from now.  I know, because we are used to seeing and buying whatever we fancy at the local supermarket, regardless of the season, we’ve forgotten that there is a time for planting and a time for harvesting.

However, my Canadian friend told me that I can still plant radishes, and while radishes may not be high on your shopping list, I want you to know that my husband loves them with butter and dipped in salt.  And in India they are used as a diuretic and facial cosmetic, so there.

Another thing that I’ll do from now until May, is some more studying on the vegetable subject, find the seeds that I need, and which I suspect will have to be started indoor first.

Esmeralda

please email me at: esmeralda.newplot@gmail.com