Re: Why garden?

very well put. You need to send that into a magazine Cyndi.
A

Chapel Ridge Wal Mart National Hearing Center <4042N15@nationalhearing.com> wrote:
Well put.
Re that soapbox - do you make your own soap? ;+)

Kitty
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSR" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 5:21 PM
Subject: RE: [CHAT] Why garden?


> I've been on vacation (well, sort of, more about that later) so I'm
chiming
> in late, but I get this question from people I know fairly often. You've
> seen me whining all summer about the amount of work I gave myself with my
> too-big vegetable garden. Okay, this year was really too much, but
normally
> I do enjoy spending most of my summer gardening and preserving. Why do it,
> they ask, when I could buy it so much easier? Am I saving that much money?
> I always ask them how much money they save going to the beach. Or buying
> video games. I have no idea if I save any money, but it's not about that.
My
> enjoyment comes literally from the fruits of my labors. I start with a
bare
> patch of ground when it's cold and nasty outside. I plant, I water, I see
> the plants grow and become lush and abundant, I harvest. I enjoy the fresh
> tastes all summer and I know that all of it came solely from my own
effort.
> How not to be impressed with a perfectly ripe cantaloupe when what you
> started with was a 1/2 inch seed? When I have too much I gripe, but I'm
> still feeling pretty smug about it, because I was successful. Too little,
> and I gripe, but I know every year is different and things change. I might
> not be able to preserve everything in my own kitchen but I can do a lot,
and
> in the middle of winter I make many a meal where everything we eat is
> something we grew, including the meat. I open my pantry and among the rows
> of gleaming jars are memories of the fresh turned earth, the smell of ripe
> peaches or just-picked dill, lugging 90 pounds of tomatoes inside to
> process, finding monster zucchini. I'll forget about the effort it took
and
> only be proud of what I accomplished (it's what gets me into trouble the
> next year). Summer is right inside the door! You can't buy that, not at
the
> farmer's market and certainly not from Birdseye.
> And the ornamental garden...to look out at the yard and see the pleasing
> contrasts of colors and texture, the beauty of flowers...it lasts for
> months. And it was my idea to put it all together; see how well that new
> plant's doing, and look, there's a hummingbird nest. You can make plans
for
> things that will take years to come together, and isn't anticipation nice?
> Well. Off my soapbox. I know plenty of people who choose a lawn with one
> tree and two bushes, and have a gardener trim it all once a week. I don't
> get it, but they say it takes all kinds.
>
> Cyndi
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf
> Of kmrsy@netzero.net
> Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 3:44 PM
> To: gardenchat@hort.net
> Subject: [CHAT] Why garden?
>
> My sister sent me this quote and her following question:
>
> "Unless you've managed to plant pizza, gardening is a royal waste of
> time in my book. There's nothing quite like spending a humid afternoon
> waltzing a tiller through a quarter-acre of rocks and innocent worms, as
> I recently did, to make you appreciate the genius of Clarence Birdseye
> (the man who perfected, if that's the right word, frozen vegetables).
> And think about it: when's the last time you caught a bunch of
> freeloading rabbits in your grocer's freezer case?"
>
>
> [From my sister]So how on earth are you and I related? I can't imagine
two
> more disparate views on a subject, can you?
>
> My reply to my non-gardening sister:
>
> Think about mom and dad. Ok, they weren't related, but that's where we
> get things from. In so many ways I was closer to Mom and you to Dad, but
> there are parts of them in each of us. I hate to admit this but I think
> I got the inclination from Dad.
>
>
> Mom liked to sit and read, so do you. Dad liked to do things, to make
> something from something else; so do I. That's not to say we don't each
> have some of the other. You spend more time improving your mind and
> building your knowledge, while I spend more on my canvas. You develop a
> certain pleasure and accomplishment out of completing a puzzle while I
> find that to be nice - but then it's done, over, nothing concrete to
> show for it. I get that feeling of accomplishment from watching
> something grow from the connections I built for it. It pays me back
> every day. The hard work is worth it (besides - if it weren't for that I
> might get no exercise at all) It has given me a connectedness both to my
> home and to friends on the internet, something I sorely lacked without
> it. Note, too that the writer was talking about vegetable gardening. I
> don't grow food. I am an ornamental gardener and there is a huge
> difference. Were it not for gardening I would feel so lost in this world
> as I did before I found it. You don't know how good it can feel at the
> end of a day of tilling and rock moving to fall into the adirondack and
> survey your accomplishments and like what you see and think, "I did
> that." Of course, you can say that about your kids, but that was a team
> effort. This is all me. I don't know if that clears anything up, but
> that's how it is.
>
>
> [To Chat]Thought some of you might be able to relate.
>
> Kitty
>
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Andrea H
Petersburg, IL

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