Lessons from The Garden For A Newbie “Gardener”
Over the weekend, Anth and I planted our tomato and cucumber seedlings in the garden and sowed some seeds. I think gardens are awesome, but I’ll never proclaim myself to be an avid gardener. For one, growing up in a city meant gardening is a foreign task to me. And then there are the mosquitoes!
However, on a mild spring day, gardening is enjoyable. I also enjoy meeting the little creatures in the garden, except the mosquitoes, that is. I just want them to leave me alone. Also, harvesting is always fun!
This is our third year gardening, and I thought I’ll share some lessons I learned from the garden.
Lessons from the garden
There’s a lot to learn about growing produce
I think I’ll resolve to keep the garden going every year. It gives us some tasty zero-waste produce and allows me to learn more about edible plants.
The first year we did our food garden, I developed such a deep appreciation for the food on our table. Gardening isn’t a trip to the grocery store. Well, I read that it could be easy if you do natural farming, but to do that you need to know how to set up the system for it.
Typically, it involves a lot of bending, tending, and troubleshooting. It’s literally backbreaking at times, but I find it more interesting than regular exercise. I’d choose yard work over the gym any day!
We have to guard against pests and diseases. We got assaulted by cucumber beetles last year. I had to go out to murder them twice a day, but they still killed two or three of our cucumber plants! Eventually, they got all of them.
That’s how learned first hand that cucumber beetles carry bacterial diseases and viruses on them and can cause bacterial wilt disease in cucumber plants.
Even then, that’s okay for us because we’re just doing it for fun. If I was doing it for my livelihood, I’d be worried.
Growing edible plants taught me how much I don’t know about food production. The cucumber beetle is just one of many things that can affect the health of a garden. There’s also soil pH, nutrient-deficiency, plant compatibility, when to plant what, and so on and so forth. Every plant has its problems and nemesis too.
Did you know that you can introduce nematodes into the soil to control grubs? I certainly didn’t, I didn’t even know what nematodes were!
I also didn’t know how broccoli and bean plants looked like before I started gardening! Go ahead, laugh at me. :p
If an apocalypse were to happen and supermarkets become a thing of the past, I will starve.
It has to be a difficult job for farmers
Ever looked at the price of non-organic produce on the shelves? Typically, they’re affordable and that boggles my mind.
There are a lot of expenses involved in between growing food from seeds to selling them at the supermarket. I don’t know much about the produce supply chain, but I think it’ll involve labor, automation, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, irrigation, packaging, transportation, and shelf-space at the supermarkets.
With all the expenses involved, I wonder how farmers are making money. I think they get government subsidies? But they’re certainly not making as much as what CEOs of big companies are making. Yet what farmers do is essential for our survival.
Though I prefer everything to be done organically, watching our cucumber plants die helped me understand why farmers turn to pesticides and herbicides.
Pests and diseases can get out of hand very quickly. If there’s an economical and quick way to prevent them, can we blame them for using it? Especially when the profit margin is low? Plus, they need to do it on a large scale.
Unfortunately, it’s not a good practice in the long term.
I can’t imagine the work involved in growing food commercially. I think we should all take a minute to silently thank the farmers and farm-workers for giving us affordable produce. And not waste food.
Produce come in different shapes and sizes
I also came to realize how unnatural the perfection of the produce sold at supermarkets is.
The tomatoes in our garden came in all shapes and sizes. Often, they burst from all the moisture they’re holding in. Some of them will heal with a scar, some of them will rot.
Some of our cucumbers had brown patches on them thanks to the pretty cucumber beetles, and they were of different shapes and sizes too.
Some of our carrots looked skinny and crooked, and the beans weren’t long and uniform like those sold in stores and frozen in bags.
Now, we do have perfect-looking produce, they’re just not all perfect looking. I have a feeling a lot of produce go to waste simply for being not supermarket-quality.
Can you blame the farmers and supermarkets? We do avoid buying weird-looking produce. So much so that the standard produce has been bred for uniformity and yield – to the detriment of its flavor and nutritional profile at times.
The stuff that came out of our garden may not be picture-perfect, but they taste great.
Mother nature provides
I went on about the difficulty of growing produce. There is much to learn, but growing food is also easy if the soil is healthy! All we have to do is put seeds in the ground at the right time, provide the right nutrients and water, and the seed will grow into plants in a few months.
It’s quite miraculous to watch. And I realized that nature is really kind to us. One can know nothing about planting, plant crops suitable for the climate, and get food.
We won’t be the only ones benefiting from the plants too. In every garden is a little ecosystem supporting the lives of billions of creatures. If your soil is healthy, it’s brimming with life. It should be moist, dark, and loose. Healthy soil is carbon-rich and fertile.
Unfortunately, our lack of understanding has turned agriculture into a dangerous soil-degrading activity. An article on The Guardian stated a report “found that the cost of the damage currently caused by agriculture is greater than the value of the food produced.”
I wonder if the damage is a result of a lack of respect for our environment, but it’s probably a knowledge issue. Most of us are myopic in our views. Add the complexities of profit and livelihood into it, some farmers aren’t left with many choices.
In any case, it’s sad. We need more research and government funding that focuses on nurturing the health of the soil, or we’ll face food shortages in the future.
I wish I was loaded, then I could support local organic farms who understands and care about how things are grown. I guess that makes for good motivation to make money!
Nature is home to all – protecting nature protects us
I wrote about the documentary, Biggest Little Farm, a few months ago. In the film, they showed us how natural farming can only work when you have different types of animals and plants working together.
In the garden, I learned that on a smaller scale. To my limited knowledge, and to list a few, we need
- pollinators like bees, beetles, and butterflies to pollinate our plants
- earthworms to aerate and fertilize our soil
- bigger insects to control smaller insects’ populations, like soldier beetle and cucumber beetles, and ladybugs and aphids
- microbes and fungi to break down dead matter and maintain soil health
- birds to keep the balance of pests in check
Take any one of those away, and we’ll have a problem on our hands. This is why Anth and I only use natural and targeted methods to control pests and fertilize the soil. After all, there is so much we don’t know! The last thing we want is to accidentally harm beneficial insects.
The rampant use of pesticides in agriculture is part of what’s pushing 700 North American bee species toward extinction. Pesticides may seem like a quick solution, but it’s just not worth it in the long term. Better to respect nature’s balance and do what’s best for the soils and the creatures residing in the garden. Even in our humble little garden!
If you have to use pesticides, make sure they’re not harmful to bees and other pollinators, and apply them properly.
When we protect nature, we have a better future to look forward to.
What we grow in the garden doesn’t just belong to us
I also can’t help but notice that nature doesn’t need humans to flourish. Nature is super intelligent but intricately balanced! When we are careless, we risk damaging nature’s balance. When we’re selfish, we damage nature’s balance.
So let the swallowtail caterpillar feast on your parsley, because they play a bigger part in nature than we know.
Besides, the parsley isn’t ours alone. What we grow in the garden aren’t ours alone. Plants grew out of soil made fertile by carbon, microorganisms, and plants, with the help of carbon dioxide and sunlight. None of which belongs to us. We should totally share the bounty!
The garden taught me a lot, unexpectedly. I have to say that gardening is a humbling experience. There’s so much I don’t know about nature’s neat systems.
In comparison, going to the grocery store is easier and faster, but I’d never have gotten to experience the same appreciation for nature as I did growing some of our own produce.
You know what, it makes me want to do my part to protect what we were given. So yeah, even though I’m not very enthusiastic about gardening, I garden with reverence.
If you enjoyed reading these lessons from the garden, you may want to read about 10 ways to avoid food waste too!
