Wild, Crazy Thought....

...drawn from the post that follows this one.


Honestly, vegetable gardening does not take that much time - right now, I am sitting on 24 plants. The initial soil preperation, buying of plants, and planting them probably took me a day if you put all of the time together. Keep in mind, this year, my garden was grass so the soil preparation took longer.

In the last 6 weeks - the only thing that I have done is water. Now, while I water, I do try to pull out a few weeds. Weeds steal the valuable water from your plants which is why you do it. Yes, you can do it for aesthetics but that really isn't what I am into.

In the future - I probably will put in a simple drip system. This will cut down the time...which I am not sure is a good thing. The garden is a wonderous place when you actually are out amongst life beginning to grow. I would be putting the sprinkling system in for some enhanced efficiency....

Hmmmmm...did you see the paragraph above - increased efficiency versus time being spent where I enjoy it. The irrigation system is going to be a little mental debate. I wouldn't want to succumb to just wanting the outcome without putting in the work (which all of a sudden reminds me that is how people can get themselves in credit card trouble). It is the time during the work that I enjoy. It's good quality time.



So, we have established that vegetable gardening isn't that difficult - it takes less water than lawns do. Lawn is a weed. Yes, even the beautiful green patch sitting out in front of your house is a weed. It may be a desirable weed but it is a weed nonetheless.

What if everyone in my neighborhood committed to less lawn - and less "stylistic" ground coverings and devoted more space to vegetables? Hold on...this is going to get mind blowing.

"Nutster...you be the tomatoe guy" - a neighbor might say. "Everyone in the neighborhood will know it. Grow them in your front yard too. Instead of looking at you as eccentric, we'll all be thankful that you donated your front yard to provide for us." What if the entire neighborhood shared what they grew with everyone? ...and shared their knowledge? ..and helped in each other's garden? The elderly lady may not be able to garden anymore....but she has an overgrown yard in the back that she can't afford to maintain. She would get some of the vegetables too!

We would probably all have to get to know our neighbors a bit better - imagine that. No, we could never do that. We like to complain about them too much. We like to pine about how places where more like community back in the good ol days. Perhaps they were more communal because we communicated more. Now, we pop the garage door opener and don't have the opportunity to run into someone as we go into our homes from the front door.

The above paragraph takes me down another rabbit trail - when you think of the word "commune", you think "weird"..."not something I want to be a part of", don't you? Yet, the root is the same as communication and community. These are things that many of us feel might cause our lives to be improved if we had a bit more of them in our lives.

Vegetable gardening - could create community in a neighborhood. It would use less water. The water that was used would be for sustenance rather than looks. It would probably be a bit more organic....any of us could use a little less cancer in our lives. One has to think that all of the chemicals that go into our food have to play a bit of a role in the higher level of disease that we have in the west. We might actually "live off the land" and eat the fruits and vegetables that we should.

I could go on and on - but, let's face it. We don't want to make any of the changes that this would entail, would we? We would rather isolate or busy ourselves with meaningless things that truly are "chasing the wind" as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes.

Still, it was a lovely thought to park on - for a few moments on this gorgeous June morning in Roseville (near Sacramento), California.