Gardening Lessons

This past Friday, I spent a good part of the day engulfed in the smell of rotting vegetable matter. This was the first year I had been able to have a veggie patch, and I certainly had a lot to learn. There is a pretty short growing season here in Flagstaff. The average last frost date is June 13 and the average first frost date is September 21. Nighttime temperatures reach below freezing for about 60% of the year. This is not a hospitable environment for many vegetables. To combat this problem, Isaac made me a PVC greenhouse. We were skeptical about its utility--but I must say, it definitely lengthened the growing season for us. Unfortunately, a week or so ago, the "real" cold snap happened. Temperatures dipped into the 20 degree range at night. Although we had about 10 lbs of unripe tomatoes and 11 juvenile cantaloupes left in our little plastic-covered paradise, we awoke one morning to disaster. Cell walls crumbled under the freeze thaw--and our harvest was unexpectedly halted. I remember my mother warning me about such an event. But like most things my mother told me--it didn't register until it happened to me.

For days I couldn't return to the site of the disaster. It was depressing. Our tomato plants were covered in fresh green fruits. The romas that I had grown from seed were just now rewarding me for all my painstaking care. Finally, on Friday, the smell escaping from the plastic blanket could be ignored no longer.

It should have been depressing--chopping down my little army of nutrient suppliers--but instead it gave me a warm feeling. I couldn't help but think about next year's garden and how all these reclaimed nutrients would be used. I love compost. There is something so satisfying about it. I wasn't counting on the amount of work it would take to chop down my tomato/squash jungle into a usable composting form. These were this year's sacrifices for next year's abundance. Recently Isaac and I have been discussing our final wishes for our flesh after we pass on. I suggested that I might just want my ashes to go in a compost pile. I love the idea of recycling those nutrients--my nutrients. Would I make good compost? Perhaps thoughts for another blog. So for the hours I worked, I reflected on my gardening lessons.

The biggest lesson--one that I seem to have to relearn over and over--is that its imperative to thin out vegetation or fruit. I have a really hard time with this one. It makes me sad to pull up baby shoots--and forget about picking off green fruit so that the others will develop more quickly. I should be good at it. I believe in evolution--I know that survival of the fittest is a universal truth. I guess there is too much bleeding heart liberal in me. I started to wonder if maybe Conservatives made better gardeners. People who feel that we shouldn't provide aid to the less fortunate should be good at gardening. I bet they are relentless "thinners." They may not produce many tomatoes--but the ones they do are big and juicy. That brings me to the contradiction though--in both liberals and conservatives. Why is it that conservatives believe in "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and that people get what they deserve--but yet are against abortion? Here I am--can't thin out my tomato crop because I feel that they all deserve a chance to .. to.. to.. become my lunch --but I stand firmly on the side of a woman's right to choose.

One day, I hope to master the art of gardening. I will never understand politics.