Gardening is life. This blog will explain exactly why.
Do any of you remember the "Victory Gardens" during WWII, I did not think so. WWII was such a stressful time with shortages of food and rationing that "Victory Gardens" were started by many people to both feed themselves and take pressure off the war effort. It was a lesson for me that has lasted and guided me the past many years. Now I want to share it with all of you.
I grew my first garden when I was about 8 years old. I remember that I was too light to actually spade my soil. I looked forward to the day when I would have softer soil and I would be heavier on the spade. I think that my first crop was Radishes and to this day, I have not mastered exactly how to grow the kind of Radishes that I like. Now, looking back, I always recommend that the first crop that a person plants in a new garden is Asparagus. Why Asparagus? Other than trees, this is the longest maturing crop you can plant. It takes at least three years before your efforts are rewarded. That is why you need to plant it as the first thing. The other point is that it is the first crop in the spring that you can harvest. My Asparagus comes in about the first of May and it is very delicious considering that the seeds that you will be planting in May will not be ready for harvest until about July or August.
Think about gardening with all the weeding and watering with nothing in return for your efforts until several weeks or months. This is life's lesson that people who do not have a garden do not learn. Think about how things have shifted here in the USA over the past years? Americans used to be farmers and those who homesteaded virgin land, but not any more. Back in about 1950 most people lived in small towns or farms when our total population was under 150 million. Now we are over 300 million and fewer people live on farms and small towns. Gardening for food for the table is almost gone. Those few gardeners today do it mostly for recreation and the novelty of fresh vegetables from their garden.
This year a friend gave me some pepper plants that she grew from the seeds inside of some peppers that she had bought at the grocery store. Do people today know that seed from the grocery store can actually be planted in your garden? I remember that we used to grow Black Eyed Peas from the bag of peas that we bought at the grocery store. In most cases we saved seeds from out best plants to be planted the next season. You can actually cut and eat the tops of green onions you buy from the grocery store and then plant the bottom part to grow more onion tops. We also used to always buy our "seed potatoes" at the grocery store too. I remember my mother and grandmother cutting seed potatoes in the early spring. It was my job to keep their knifes sharp and "thin" so they would lice thru the potato with less force.
It is another blog, but with our big gardens we always had extra to can for the winter. No one in those days had a freezer. We dried fruit too. These are all lessons that have guided the nation for many years that are mostly, now, or have been set aside and lost. Writing this blog has made me remember a lot of lesson that have guided me and others that have been lost to those who will inherit the future of the USA. It is kind of a sad time. I just hope that we have not made too big of a mistake with the loss of gardening.
