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Finding your inner gardener
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“I'm hoping my pioneer/farming genes will kick in,” my cousin emailed me the other day, a Minnesota suburbanite who is turning to vegetable gardening to ease the economic crunch of feeding a family of five. I assured her—she would indeed find her inner farmer/gardener.
How do I know this? For the majority of Midwesterners, farming is only a couple of generations removed at most. Many can remember visits to Grandpa’s and Grandma’s vegetable or ornamental gardens. If not that, most have at least nurtured a small pot or plot in which they grew a tomato or some herbs.
But my cousin and I, and I suspect most of us, are influenced by something much more visceral and ancient when we plant. It is a response akin to our reflex to smile and coo when face-to-face with a burbling infant.
When our hands touch soil, when nascent seeds are transformed into stretching seedlings and eventually bountiful vegetables, there is a moment of truth and power when we find ourselves learning at a gut level that we are at once enjoying the fruits of our labor and connecting with a primitive need for green and growing things.
Few of us fully understand the mystery and complexity of photosynthesis, carbon sequestration, uptake and transformation of water and nutrients. For most of us, the fact that the darn thing grows is miracle enough.
So why is it we garden? Here are some thoughts:
For purpose, for recreation, for meditation, for mindlessness, for solitude, for community, for gusto, for grace, for memories and for the future—the reasons are as diverse as the humans we are.
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