A Practical Gardener's Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruit and Herbs

This past Memorial Day marked three years we have lived in this house. And with home ownership the grown up thing to do since the year we've moved in was to plant a small garden. At the very least a tomato plant or two the first year. The next year the garden expanded, growing most everything from seeds. This year I ripped out a tree and two bushes to make room in our small backyard. I even went as far as to make a compost pile (that's beginning to smell like a herd of cattle). But the thing is I hate yard work. I break out the weed whacker once a month at best, I do a poor job sweeping grass clippings off the driveway, and really only rake the leaves to avoid the death stares I'd get from my neighbors who literally trim the grass along their sidewalk with a pair of scissors.

So despite my yard-care short comings, I've become somewhat of a gardener. People with gardens are just like people that like to who restore old cars, just like people that love to cook, and like people that enjoy being crafty. All these people, they're filling a need to be creators. They're completely in charge of something, they have power over it. With the economy in it's current state they say home gardens have become the popular trend this summer. Gardening is the new black. It might be reasonable to assume that all these new gardens are just as much about being able to control something in a world full of things totally out of our hands as it is about saving money on food. With everything in our lives dragging us along, people find comfort in having something in life that we get to drag around.

Now with all that said I find gardening neither calming nor refreshing. While watching pounds of food come from a small little seed is beyond amazing - beyond complete human comprehension, the sweat from having to water on hot humid days, and dirt that you can never quite get out from under the fingernails are something I could do without. And despite my best efforts the slugs destroy my dill, insects make a buffet out of my bok choy, and birds stake out my strawberries. By the middle of August I'll be so over this whole gardening business. I'll be up to my ears in tomatoes and looking forward to fall's first frost.

Rats Saw God

In fourth grade we all had to take part in the Presidential Physical Fitness Program. This was the first time in my school career that gym class was not something involving a kickball, jump rope, or even a square dance. Yes, we square danced in gym, which wasn't bad IF your partner was one of the cuter girls in class, but being that there were probably only 2 that fell into that category it was always a crap shoot. Anyways, PPF program was the first real test of a young child's physical abilities. The reward for meeting the requirements of the program was a certificate with an official looking signature from the President and more importantly a blue round patch.

Why a patch? Who knows. It's not like we all had jackets or better yet sashes to sew all our patches on. In reality the patch would end up in a desk drawer along with crewed up superballs and cereal box toys. Never the less I wanted that patch. And for the most part it was smooth sailing. The shuttle run with the chalk board erasers, I conquered. The v-sit reach with two classmate pushing down on my knees was a breeze. The only problem with the sit-ups was trying not to pass gas on the person holding my feet. The mile run was torture but I got through it. The unmovable obstacle came in the form of pull-ups.

Being only nine years old my upper body strength was practically non-existent. I could not do a single pull-up let alone the required five. Thus my PPF award was out of reach. However, this being public education, where no student is to be told that they are less than the best, I received a round yellow and white patch that said "participant." I hated that patch and it's "good try, you did you're best, better luck next time" message.

Fast forward twenty years, as a teacher with slightly better upper body strength, I stumbled upon a container packed with PPF patches. They were just out there in the open, not hidden away, not under lock and key, not guarded in anyway. So I snatched one. I consider it a lifetime achievement award since certainly I have done at least five pull-ups in the past 20 years.

We have these important things in our childhood lives, and we grow up to learn how very unimportant these things are in the real world. But the fact that these things were once so important makes us look back at them with nostalgia. They allow us to remember what it means to live a care-free life.

That's what's great about the coming-of-age genre. Stories about young characters facing problems that aren't that big of a deal, but to those characters, the problems are practically earth shattering. Problems that many of us had and made too big of a deal about at the time. Rats Saw God has nothing to due with rats or God but rather a smart yet slacking teenager with girlfriend and daddy problems and by the end he's learned how to deal with both, a character in the mold of many guys were or knew growing up.

One quick note, this book was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. I mention that only because it seems YA lit has gotten a little edger since I was a young adult. For example the first line of the book is "Though I tried to clear my head of the effects of the fat, resiny doobie I'd polished off an hour before..." Toto, I don't think we're in Narnia anymore.

Body for Life

So there's this thing called sympathy weight. It's something a man claims after 9 months of running out to get a small milkshake for his expecting wife and ordering a large milkshake for himself. Or when the husband plants food ideas in the expecting woman's heads, like "we haven't had ice cream in awhile" or "we should order the x-large pizza instead of the medium." But it's not all one big con job, the husband is just trying to be supportive, going as far as to skip the gym the mornings of the last two months of the pregnancy in order to help take care of the 2 year old. And of course once the second child has arrived the husband is so busy helping out with late night feedings that the gym is the least of his concerns. Add in the food friends and family bring and it's no wonder the husband is not sporting his summer physique. Now the husband isn't obese, I don't want to give you that impression as it might hurt the husband's delicate feelings, he's just out of shape.

So the husband (as well as the now unpregnate wife) is going to be follow the Body for Life
plan. Not a diet, a PLAN, the husband would never follow some silly diet. And the most beneficial part of this plan is just having some sort of structure, a schedule. Something to tell the husband what to do and when to do it. And isn't this what we all secretly want. Regardless of how much freedom we claim we have, no matter how much individuality we view are self with - at some point and in some way we want to be told how and what to do. We liked to be parented. The husband wants to be told what to eat even though it's not what or as much as he'd like to eat. I'll try to remember to let you know how he does.