BY Christian Warren Freed
Isn’t it funny how life is cyclical? It was the back of the 1970s when I first started paying attention. Oh, not to politics or social issues or war. What concerned me was sitting in long gas lines when I could have been playing with friends. While I had no real concept of money, I knew times were tough.
We would go out to the fields after farmers went through and harvested. Along with plenty of other families, we would pick the leftover beans or what-have-you. There was a point where all we had was peanut butter and bread for a week. For a family of four. I’d love to say I was making this up, but times were tough back then.
Flash forward a few decades and it doesn’t take much imagination to see the past threatening to return. We are all forced to tighten the belts, budget a little more and, in some cases, choose how we are going to spend the little cash leftover once the bills are paid. It may not be fun, but that’s where we’re at.
Now, my wife and I are empty nesters, but we seldom eat out. Who wants to pay 12 dollars for a fast-food meal? Before the last few years, I used to love hitting the grocery store. Times have changed. Prices keep rising. Remember when eggs were almost as hard to get as toilet paper? (I’m still not sure what that says about society.)
Inflation, greed, and a dozen other factors have crushed that joy in us. We decided something needed to change. I’ve already ditched the coffee maker for an old school percolator, and I love my cast iron skillets. So why not go back to the basics—and grow the food we want to offset the rising costs at the grocery store?
This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m not a gardener. I can hit the bullseye at 800 meters on an open sight, tear apart an engine, and write all day long, but gardening? Nah. Undeterred, we took at trip to a local store and started grabbing plants and seeds. That’s where we ran into a man who soon proved not only helpful with his knowledge, but a guy we continue staying in touch with. He asked my wife why she was wasting money on all those plants. A short conversation later and we agreed to head over to his house. We were not disappointed.
His entire backyard was a working garden, filled with vegetables and fruits. While he explained the basics of how to start a garden, he started digging up plants and tossing them in buckets for us to take home.
We left with just enough information to be dangerous and started building out the garden. Neither of us understood what we were getting into or how complicated growing can actually be. Sure, buying the fertilized soil (because we sure aren’t growing anything in this clay) and building a few raised beds was easy enough, but even with our new friend’s guidance we quickly discovered there is a lot more involved than just sticking a few shoots or seeds in the ground.
Now, I’m sure there are plenty of you right now thinking, “I could have told you that,” and you’d be right, but some lessons are learned the hard way. Our garden’s first year saw little more than some oregano we didn’t know what to do with, and a few jalapeños. Everything else died. I mean everything.
We had 5-foot-tall tomato plants. How many tomatoes did we eat? Zero. The mint died so fast. Everyone keeps telling me how easy it is to grow mint. Really? Is it really? I didn’t think so. Of course, our new friend also failed to mention, as he dug up a nice hearty clump of lemon balm with a mischievous grin, that the stuff grows like a weed. Now half my backyard has lemon balm growing, no matter how fast I pull it. The upside is it tastes good with seafood or in tea and my yard smells like lemons.
The Mrs. and I took a step back at the end of the growing season and reassessed. We bought a bunch of books from Barnes and Noble and started learning about how to grow what we wanted, the right way. Maybe some of this might help you. It has us. We are always in the backyard now either weeding, watering, or harvesting.
I started redirecting our efforts by planting seeds in a portable container sometime in February. Once the seeds grew large enough, we planted them. We have since found that some die from root shock, but others grow strong and bloom. We learned to water from the bottom, careful not to get the leaves wet (which doesn’t make any sense to me because it rains).
Certain herbs and vegetables grow well together. Others don’t. Tomatoes drink more water than I do, and cucumbers are the devil’s own. Last year we couldn’t give them away fast enough. Asparagus is a time-consuming endeavor, but worth it. While you can’t eat it the first year it blooms, the next year they just keep popping up and popping up. I planted two roots, and we have close to a hundred shoots.
Thanks to the dehydrator we bought, our herbs don’t go to waste anymore. We dry them and grind them and usually wind up giving most away throughout the growing season.
There is fun back in cooking now that our grocery bills are offset by the garden. You’d be surprised how much it can add up over a year. We’ve taken to making our own bread once a week and use berries to whip up some freezer jam that many of our friends and neighbors have enjoyed.
Finding this happiness from getting my hands dirty—notice I refer to my hands, not our hands—and being able to share with others not only makes us feel good, but it has helped bring us closer together as we try to figure out where this crazy life is leading us.
Starting a garden isn’t that hard. All you need is a little land with plenty of sun and the willingness to take a moment and do some research. There are plenty of people around to ask for help. Best of all, we have found others who do far more than we do, and now we swap vegetables and fruits, even eggs if we’re lucky, from spring to fall.
I still enjoy perusing the aisles for little items to expand my culinary skills, but now I can do so knowing I’m producing more than enough to eat, and all from the comfort of my own home.
If you are interested in saving a few dollars and strengthening your bond with your significant other, there are plenty of good books out there, or call one of the local nurseries. The folks I’ve spoken with are more than willing to answer questions. Or, you might just run into that one person who has knowledge to share that will help you turn your backyard into a sustainable garden for years to come.
Happy growing, friends.
