“My advice to my husband during the extreme weather of 2010’s growing season was, ‘don’t plant a garden next year, it’s too much work’,” commented D. Hopkinson, former owner/partner in the DanDe Greenhouse here in Clinton, Tennessee, “to which, my husband replied, ‘yeah, but if there is any one reason in particular to plant another garden, despite last year’s disappointments, it is to keep my doctors off my case to get more exercise! It is amazing how quickly they change the subject when they learn that I plant a garden, LOL!’”
In truth, there are several extremely good reasons for someone to invest time, money, and effort into planting a garden every year. Have you walked through the produce section your local grocery store lately and noticed the price of those vegetables? With a little time, money, and effort, many of those same vegetables can be grown on your own property; it is a natural process that you merely enhance by providing optimum growing conditions in your garden. “And if, as last year’s experience attests,” reiterated D. Hopkinson, former owner/partner in the DanDe Greenhouse, “mother nature chooses to not bestow her blessings upon your efforts, what have you lost? You can harvest what you can, as we did last year in English peas, sugar-snap peas, potatoes, and some grape tomatoes, and write off what you couldn’t harvest because of factors beyond your control – we figure that we still made out on the deal last year thanks to planting twice as many seed potatoes and five pounds each of English peas and sugar snap peas. We still have an abundant supply of each left in the freezer and the additional potatoes are safely tucked away in a root cellar, awaiting our beckoning call.”
When you plant and tend your own garden YOU have control over the kinds of nutrients that are used to facilitate the healthy growth of your vegetables. YOU choose whether to use commercially prepared fertilizers OR to garden organically. Most of us know that organically grown food is better for us, and anyone who has considered buying organically grown vegetables at the supermarket soon learns that they are more expensive. What better way to make your grocery dollars stretch than to plant some vegetable seeds and let the normal course of nature provide you with a bountiful harvest as well as some peace of mind knowing that your vegetables were not grown with commercially prepared fertilizers or sprayed with unwanted insecticides. Couple the benefits provided by harvesting organically grown vegetables with the cardio-vascular workout that one enjoys while tilling, planting, cultivating, and harvesting, and the paltry amount of time spent preparing, planting, cultivating, and harvesting those vegetables seems to be an extremely fair trade-off (although sometimes it doesn’t feel that way in the heat of the moment while engaged in any of those activities, LOL). The additional exercise does not end when the vegetables are harvested, for there is the effort exerted in cleaning, blanching, and freezing your bounty, OR, if you are one of those diehard, old-timey gardeners who insist upon canning rather than freezing, a substantial amount of additional effort is exerted in the canning process!
In addition to the monetary and health benefits of gardening, there is also the quality of vegetables that you can put on your dining table fresh from the garden, rather than fresh from the commercial grower via your local favorite grocery store brought there by some big truck from far, far, away. How much fresher can any vegetable get when you step out back to your garden, pick it, and walk it back into your kitchen, and begin to prepare it immediately?
And if these reasons are not enough, let’s appeal to one of the baser traits of human beings, pride! Many gardeners enjoy the sense of pride and satisfaction that comes from announcing to your family and friends gathered around a holiday dinner table that much of the bounty they are about to partake of was the product of your own efforts, grown in your own garden. Or, how about the satisfaction that accompanies your generosity as a gardener to share the wealth produced in your own garden by your own efforts amongst family and friends, and maybe even your church family, all season long?
Do not misunderstand, there are plenty of times that the question, ‘tell me once again why I garden?’ crosses the minds of any gardener, avid or not; but the reasons provided here are just some that surface in the mind of any avid gardener once the frustrations of the past growing season have past. Should the supply line of fresh vegetables to the local grocery store ever falter or cease to exist; should the prices of vegetables suddenly sky-rocket due to inclement weather in those places far, far, away where they are grown (like the recent price of gasoline jumping $.40 this past year alone); should there ever come a time when a garden becomes a necessity rather than a pastime or hobby; wouldn’t it be great to rest assured that you have already gotten your feet wet and learned what it takes to produce your own vegetables in your very own backyard vegetable garden; and we haven’t even considered the benefits of flower gardens, yet! Truly, the avid gardener knows (although sometimes forgets momentarily) why he/she gardens!
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