Archive for April, 2008

Pollan and My Garden


My hiatus from the blogosphere is due in part to a failed logic board on my aging laptop. My apologies. One can’t control what seems like a freak act of nature. Can one predict the failing of a logic board as we can the weather?
The other reason I’ve been “away” has to do with this photograph of my neighbor’s flowers soon after they covered them in a sheet of plastic. The weatherman predicted frost. I had already planted my tomatoes.
The farmer’s almanac says the risk of frost in this area is around May 5. I took the risk and lost four tomato plants that I started from seeds.
My vegetable garden this year is the biggest I’ve ever attempted.
Michael Pollan’s introduction, “Why Bother?” for this past week’s New York Times Magazine, their green issue, resonated with my new gardening addiction and general concern for the state of our society and the planet. He talks about what seems like the inevitable changes in the climate and the “why bother” feeling he and others sometimes have towards doing anything about it. By the end of the piece he estimates that one of the biggest things one can do to begin to make positive changes with regards to the environment is to grow your own food. Your stomach, not your driving habits, according to Pollan, has more to do with the issue of global warming than most other things.
So my garden grows, and my understanding of my neighbors, who come over to talk about what plants are growing faster than others, where they got their manure, and my understanding of the plant world grows as well. Every season and every garden, like I was telling my dad over the phone, is a new lesson in what not to do. It’s a lot like cooking. Every time you put together a specific dish it tends to get refined down into a better tasting meal after about the tenth time making it.