This summer I've been exercising my gardening muscles after I got a small space in the new West Hollywood community garden. I had been doing active container gardening for several years, trying out some vertical gardening ideas - with varied success. Flowers, ornamental and herbs did well, but my attempts at growing food never thrived or attracted pests. So when my number (literally) came up in the new garden lottery, I accepted it with excitement.
It took a lot of work to prepare the soil. (The garden area used to be an old lot so the soil was not that great.) Then I planted the seeds, watered them diligently, daily. I watched them sprout, tender and fragile, until they grew stronger, maturing. Often after I finished watering the garden, I'd stop by the grocery store and pick up things for dinner. The irony was not lost on me. After months of diligent tending, I was finally able to harvest some of the fruits of my labor.
Like my container garden attempts, some items thrived in the SoCal summer better than others. This coupled with a harvest screw-up made some items inedible. After the months of nurturing this was a tragedy. Still, I had more than enough chard, peppers, tomatoes, and basil (had I not let it go to seed). The sunflowers grew tall with their happy yellow faces.
Of course we ate what we grew - but there's no way we could have lived on what the garden produced. Yet, at the same time, we had more than enough of some things. This gave me new respect for high yield seeds and professional farmers. Those farms that focus on growing amazing, lush foods for us to eat. (I am probably more spoiled than most, living in Los Angeles with the fertile San Joaquin Valley a few hours away.)
I thought, who are these people that want to go back to the old way - of tough small harvests. Science and technology has made life easier - life more productive (both for plants, animals and humans). Why throw these discoveries away or worse, ignore them. They give us the ability to focus on finer grain issues in the world.
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