Garden Giddy

In my passion to pursue a healthy lifestyle, I have been inspired to grow some of my own vegetables. This isn't a new desire. I began this endeaver three years ago but took last year off due to other demands in my life. I didn't think I'd be able to squeeze this horicultural chore into my life again after taking a full-time job but I'm making a go at it.

Sunday afternoon & evening, I spent 8 hours breaking up the sod-like weeds that developed in my garden plot while it sat fallow. How could the weeds be this bad? I try not to be overcome with the futility of my work as I think about the thousands of weeds I've pulled from this same ground over the years. I always make every effort to get the roots, but they come up again and again.

Part of me wants to get some Round-up and spray my plot like a crazed, weed-attacking woman. Of course, this is a dangerous weed killer that we don't want to find in our vegetables so I suppress my weed anihilating fantasies and content myself with shaking the dirt from the thick mat-like clumps and plucking the stray pieces from the newly hoed ground.

At the end of my work I was black with dirt, sunburned, blistered, stiff and sore...but happy.

After a hot, soapy shower I fell into bed and fell asleep. I awoke all through the night with throbbing arms and sore back. In the morning I found myself unable to bend over, twist, or hold a pen. Maybe I overdid it a little? I went through my day feeling like I had been in an accident. Did you know that every hour of yard work burns 330 calories? Ahhh...the joys of gardening. I've never felt closer to an eighty year old arthritic woman...so why do I do this?

• There is no feeling like looking at a plot of black, freshly turned soil just waiting for vegetable plants to be planted in neat rows and know that for one day at least, I won over the weeds.
• The outdoor work takes me into the sun, mucking in the dirt, away from computers, cars, stores and the t.v. where I can think in solitude for hours at a time. It's the one place my kids will not bother me in fear that they will be recruited to help me.
• It fills me with parental pride to see my vegetable plants grow and bud as I tend to weeding, feeding and watering when the rain doesn't.
• I love the thrill of spotting the first tiny vegetables emerging out of no-where with the promise of harvest in days to come.
• I love the feeling of plucking the firm, ripe, warm vegetables, carrying them into the house like a warrior bringing in the spoils and setting them on my cool, clean, kitchen counter.
• I love washing, preparing and eating something that I helped produce. To me it tastes juicier, sweeter and tastier than anything I have ever bought in the grocery store and I can say, "That came from my garden" to anyone eating with me. They can't taste the difference, but I can.

That's why I do what I do.