Adventures in Gardening

I’m a 34 year-old married guy with 2 little boys. My first memories of having an environmental conscious involve litter; I grew up on a rural road in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of Appalachia, where my neighbors decided to fill a gulch with their trash appliances and tires, and where (if you weren’t careful) your garbage would get raided by dogs and/or other scavengers, spread across the yards and I got to clean it up. The sight and smell of both of these things stuck with me.

I distinctly remember having the first job I really wanted, with Ohio People’s Interest Research Group (Ohio PIRG). Before this, I’d been a dishwasher at a Thai restaurant (all the greasy, rice-covered plates were terrible, but the chef’s made amazing meals for the dishwasher), the only in Clermont County, and a breadstick maker at Little Ceasars, where I never graduated to making pizzas. The PIRG job sucked: I was surrounded by people who were living off the back of environmental issues,  and didn’t give a damn about them. I remember riding in the car to a “stake” with 8 people crammed in, and the driver put up the windows and turned on the A/C. We had all just learned in our morning briefing that “automobile A/Cs are responsible for 80% of ozone-depleting materials,” and I repeated the statistic. The driver turned to me and said, “Son, I appreciate your conviction, but this is a rental car and we’re using the A/C.” I gave up arguing about the issue, then, because if you couldn’t convince a car full of supposed environmentalists, who really gives a damn?

I never gave up what I believed, I just ceased shoving it in people’s faces. It’s still tough, and I walk a fine line between advocacy and activism even now. I hope, with this blog, to share what I know, what I’m learning, and how goddamn fun it is in general.

I have a small garden now, but lots of possibilities, and I mess around with new ideas. I have been convinced it is awfully easy to grow great things, if you give it a try. I’m amazed how easy it is, really, and how forgiving the process is. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been involved in that the single most complicated thing is planning how to get more from something.

You’re going to get something from your garden. How much, is really up to you, your plans and your willingness to follow them. And, you’ll have fun.