Before....
During.....
After....
Sometimes you learn more from a
question than an answer.
About 20 years ago I was a full-time
working mom, had a husband in grad school, 3 growing children, aging
and ailing parents to help, and a farmstead to manage. I must have
been crazy because every spring I'd plant a huge garden. Of course I
had built-in slave labor in my children for weeding and harvesting
but the inevitable fruitfulness of the garden meant many nights of
canning tomatoes and green beans into the wee hours of the morning.
I even canned the runty little potatoes that were too small for
anything but soup. At one point a friend asked me, “Why in the
world did you plant potatoes?!? They are 10 lbs for 99 cents at the
grocery store!”
Believe it or not, that question has
haunted me for the last 20 years. I think I was so astonished by the
question that I didn't even answer her. Why, indeed, plant potatoes
when you can buy them for 10 cents a pound? If you count your labor
for anything (most gardeners don't), buying the potatoes at the
market certainly made fiscal sense.
I don't think I have a good answer to
the question even now after 20 years but I still think about it.
Here are a couple of thoughts I've had...
Gardeners plant things for the
same reason the chicken crosses the road. Every 6 year old can tell
you the chicken crosses the road simply to get to the other side (a
perfect example of what my husband calls a 'Microsoft answer –
technically correct but practically useless'). I think most
gardeners plant things simply because they can. I honestly don't
know why more people don't “cross the road”. There are few
things that give you as high a return on the investment as sticking
a few seeds in the ground and watching it grow, mature and bear
fruit. There just isn't much to beat that and it's something every
gardener knows.
Joy; most gardeners plant things
simply for joy. Anyone who has carefully stepped the potato fork
into the soil at summer's end and turned over a loamy pile of dirt
with perfect and beautiful potatoes spilling out will know what I'm
talking about. Run your fingers through the soil, breathe in and
smell the thousand fragrances released. Put those potatoes into a
wire egg basket. Move down the row and repeat. Backbreaking?
Probably. But full of joy, discovery and delight. It's the same
sensation as reaching your hand into the nesting box and pulling out
warm brown eggs laid by hens that have names. Would it be cheaper
to buy the eggs at the market? Definitely. But where's the joy in
that?
Joy is adequate reason for many other
things we do. Why spend hours bent over, cutting fabric into little
pieces and then hours over the sewing machine, sewing them together
again? I could go to the store and buy a blanket to warm my loved
ones' beds – why go to the bother of making a quilt? It's simply
a matter of joy - love and joy.
Maybe in another 20 years I'll have
more insightful answers to my friend's question but for now those two
answers will do just fine. And there is a single potato plant
growing in my garden right now...just so I don't forget the question.
