Why Doesn’t Everyone Have a Garden?

I will confess that I have spent more time thinking about gardens during the past 12 months than I probably have done for all of my other 44 years combined. Kinda weird really…and I am thinking about getting a check up to make sure that there is nothing wrong with me.

Actually it is not as bad as it sounds, we have met many people during our trip that know a fair amount about sustainability, and in fact, made some new friends in Obera Argentina last month that started a “sustainable farm” a couple of years ago that we visited.

…they had a garden.

Besides meeting and talking with folks that have gardens, it is sort of a natural subject to think about when considering alternative, simple, sustainable lifestyles…things that Gina and I are interested in learning more about. While having a garden in this context makes perfect sense, it struck me as a little odd that everyone does not have a garden.

I started thinking of our friends and family and I could only come up with a handful of people that I knew had a garden, say 4 out of 300! Why is that I asked myself?

Why doesn’t everyone have a garden?

Most of us eat vegetables, don’t we? I know that kids are not much into them, but hey, even kids have a few favorites. Carrots for example. Don’t kids love carrots? Our kids do and have for the entire lives, why haven’t we planted a Carrot Garden for them? We eat salads, like potatoes, use onions in most of our cooking…garlic also – we could grow all of these in our garden, couldn’t we?

For a couple of years before we have kids Gina and I had a big vegetable garden. We lived on a ½ acre so we had lots of room, but how much room do you really need for a vegetable garden…seems to me not much. Our backyard, or sideyard, in the suburbs was plenty big enough for a few head of lettuce, a dozen carrots and onions – but we did not have a garden.

I am cheap…I mean frugal…or at least I like saving a buck here and there. It would seem to me that a family of four could save a few bucks growing our own vegetables instead of buying them from the grocery store. These days most of our produce is shipped hundreds and even thousands of miles before it arrives on the grocery store shelves, stepping outside and picking vegetables from your own garden would likely result in fresher, better tasting veggies.

Growing your own vegetables is lots of fun. Still fascinates me to plant a little seed, see the first sprout, and watch the plant grow until you harvest a few months later. I would imagine that kids would have lots of fun and learn a lot about plants, and nature, and food.

…but still no garden.

This will sound strange, but I actually get sad thinking about the “missed opportunities” to have a garden. And, I get equally excited thinking about starting a garden when we “settle down”.

I don’t know the answer and have not spent any time researching the question, maybe someone else has thoughts on the subject.

I guess the reason we did not have a garden was because of a lack of time and the convenience that the grocery store provides. I can probably come up with a bunch of other lame excuses if you give me some time…

There are many things in our lives that have gone the way of the garden in American lives. A detachment from nature, from simple, basic elements that are replaced with convenience, excess and disposable products. A lifestyle of more instead of enough is plenty. Where bigger is better is the mantra that we all adhere to – while the realities are that none of this is sustainable.

It is just a garden for goodness sake I hear you saying…I know, I know but is it also just a new T.V. and just a new car and just a bigger house and just a Big Mac and just public education and just health care and just a home mortgage and just a credit card?

We are teaching a generation how to transfer a balance from a high interest credit card to a low interest “introductory rate” card – but not how to fix the plumbing, or repair the car, or cook a meal, or plant a garden…

We took Gigi to the Buenos Aires Zoo today and they had an Organic Garden next door to the petting zoo, I think it was part of an educational program for kids. While Gigi was busy feeding the goats, and cows, and chickens I just looked at the garden trying to identify the different plants and thinking what a very nice garden it was, and how nice it would be if we had a garden like this, and dreaming about the different things we would plant in our garden.

…then it was time to go see the monkeys!

More than 15 years ago now we used to live down the road from a Pepper Farm. Gina and I would visit the farm on the weekends and walk down row after row of different types of peppers. It was the most amazing place, we both like spicy food and made a lot of fresh salsa with the peppers from this farm. I have had a dream to create our own Pepper Farm some day, to plant different types of peppers from all over the world for local restaurants or families that like peppers also. We would learn to dry them, and learn to create different types of dishes using them. What fun that would be!

So, there really is not any moral to this story…simply a guy with too much time on his hands, that thinks about things a lot, and that writes a travel/gardening blog for fun….

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