We said Goodbye to the Garden

Goodbye, Garden. We cleared our garden today. We harvested all the tomatoes – still green on the vine, and took every plant down. There will be no garden next year, or perhaps ever. But never say never, right?

Goodbye, compost

I removed my compost too. The poor compost I had left maturing and shamefully, neglected. Half a dozen tomato plants (and weeds) had sprung from it so the whole area around the compost looked like a mini jungle. We let them grow and got tomatoes we didn’t put in labor for. Thank you, nature.

As I cleared the tarp covering the compost and moved the chicken wire out of the way so I can shovel compost into the raised bed – I muttered, “now we say goodbye to losing and hello to winning.” It was supposed to be failing and succeeding.

I thought I screwed the compost up because the top layer was dry and the carbon (scraps of paper) and some eggshells and tufts of hair and cotton yarn were still visible. I shoveled, a little mad at myself for not trying harder. Then I discovered in the lower layers, after sending a nest of roly-polys and two quarter-sized spiders scuttling, the compost.

Dark, soft, and fluffy, it looked like good dirt and smelled like good dirt, earthy and aromatic. This batch of compost smelled richer than my first batch, or maybe I simply forgot.

My spirits lifted at the sight and smell! Once again, I was amazed how a year’s worth of food scrap reduced to a (mostly) beautiful pile of fertilizer. I didn’t exactly fail, then. Given a little more patience, space, and study, I probably can figure out how to turn the entire thing into homogenous compost. My heart wasn’t in the right place.

So I shoveled the compost onto the garden beds that we were abandoning, took out the stakes that shaped the compost “bin”, and folded up the chicken wire fencing. And there’s that. A year of food scraps directed from the landfill.

Thank you, compost.

• Read about how to start a compost bin and experience the joy yourself!
• Learn more about composting here!

Goodbye, garden

Then I joined my better half, removed the rest of the tomato and cucumber plants, and put away the stakes and tomato cages.

I’m not good at documenting things, but I thought this was a significant point in our lives worth writing about.

We started the garden in 2018 when I first came here to marry the love of my life. We had been talking about tiny houses and gardens for years by then. The idea of a sustainable way of life inspired us in different ways, but it inspired us both.

The first year, we set up the raised beds with cinderblocks, lined the beds with cardboard, and filled it with mushroom compost and dirt. We scattered woodchips around the beds and set up a fence around the two raised beds so the dogs can’t pee on our crops. It was all very basic, but it worked.

That year, we grew tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, green beans, lettuce, herbs, broccoli, and carrots. We were crazy ambitious.

I started a compost container right away, composting was a passion project of mine because I know how helpful it is for the environment if we all composted.

For the next three years, we focused on tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots in the fall. We always had good harvests – enough to allow us to share!

It’s hard to imagine it has been 4 years. I’ve grown in the most important ways, I’m sure my husband has too. We’ve known for a while we’re not outdoorsy garden folks, it didn’t help that his health doesn’t permit him to enjoy the experience. This year, we finally made a decision to stop gardening.

Nevertheless, thank you, garden.

Garden lessons

I wanted to be that lady who grows her own vegetables, harvests, then freezes (I did this in 2018!) or cans them. Unfortunately, there was too much I don’t know and involved too much energy I didn’t have. I suppose you can’t be someone you’re not, but I really treasured my gardening experience.

Don’t take food for granted

It has shown me how much effort goes into growing food, which makes me both grateful and perplexed that produce is affordable. I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US and in Singapore, you can eat relatively affordably and healthily if you cooked. To give just a few examples, 3 heads of lettuce is about $3, big bags of potatoes or carrots are a few dollars each, a can of beans can be found at $1, and mushrooms are about $4 for a pound.

The resources put into produce growing must be staggering, yet it’s available at a decent price. I loath the day when climate change increases the price of food, but I assure you, it’s coming.

I’ve naturally learned to cherish food even more and avoid wasting food as much as I can.

• Read about 10 ways to reduce food waste!

Bugs aren’t scary

Tending a garden made me a little closer to nature. Little earthworms, furry bees, fat slugs, tiny leaf-miners, green hornworms, pesky cucumber beetles, scary stink bugs, quick spiders, and so on, they were once foreign to me, but I’ve gotten used to being around them. 4 years ago you’ll never see me picking pinworms off the tomato plants, today I’ll do it without a second thought. I’ve also come to see spiders as friends of the spiders and realized that bees are extremely adorable.

Be a good member of nature

Perhaps most importantly, the whole gardening experience showed me how intelligent nature is. The system functions like a perfect cycle that feeds everyone involved somehow – be it microbes in the soil, little bugs on the plants, the pollinators, or animals like me and the birds. Then the plants die, decompose, and return to the ground as nutrients.

It inspires me to see myself in the world as a part of a similar cycle. So I think about how to give, how to take just enough, and how to rest assured that the creation is benign.

Gardening has definitely cemented my desire to reduce my carbon footprint as much as I can. I don’t think I can shake the desire even if I tried.

Moving on

I wasn’t feeling sad when we cleared the garden. Writing about it seems to have made it real, so now I feel a sense of loss. I suppose I loved the garden more than I realized. Perhaps one day, we’ll start another garden. For now, we need to focus on getting back on our feet, and that shall be a post for another day.

One thing’s for sure though, I want to keep composting and grow a few small edible plants if I ever have a place of my own, even if I live in the city. Now that I know what I can do with food scraps, throwing them in the trash feels wasteful and moronic.

Do you have a garden? What do you grow? Do you compost? Leave your comments so we all get inspired! As usual, thank you for reading!