Life is funny. Life is just funny. It amuses me.
Here I sit, enjoying a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale and full of spaghetti. This week I’ve been working on two articles for Retail Traffic and one for Current, as well as the website for my mom’s farmers’ markets, Scanning the Dial, setting up my new MacBook (yum), my taxes and sundry other things. I tell you, it’s enough to keep a man from all the online Scrabble he really ought to be playing.
Today, I worked steadily from 9 to 4. I know you people with 9-to-5 jobs are scoffing right now, but I have been reading (and loving) Tom Hodgkinson’s The Freedom Manifesto (I really prefer the British title, How to Be Free), and it is putting me in the mindset that really, seven hours of solid “work” in a day is about four hours too many. Come 4 o’clock, my back and legs were aching and I felt terribly restless. I was ready to join the circus or craft a nutty mask or do something equally drastic. But I did not undertake these things. Instead, I visited my community garden plot.
Hodgkinson, incidentally, is a big fan of gardening. But he’s not the reason I’ve started gardening — I was inspired to start growing things last fall, after reading Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I filled out a form and sent it to Richmond, Va. (odd, I thought, that I was lobbying the state government, rather than my county, for a plot). And lo and behold I was granted one, just a short walk from my condo. I head out the door, descend to and cross the creek, go up the hill and I’m there. They provide everything I need. What a deal! I’m so glad that after years of walking or biking by this community garden I finally did something about it, and now I’m a part of it.
I was commencing to double-dig, which I was advised is the best way to create a healthy and high-yield plot. Here’s what double-digging is all about. It was a lot of work, especially for a lazy sort like me. It took me a good three hours just to get one-fifth of my whole plot done. But I was just starting, which probably prolonged it, plus I paused often to talk with Colleen, a friendly fellow gardener. Note that the wikiHow article advises the following: “Begin at one end of the bed and dig a spade-head depth (approx. 12” deep) trench across the bed’s width, placing the excavated dirt in a wheelbarrow.” And then: “Fill the LAST trench with the soil excavated from the first. (The soil in the wheelbarrow)” Sound advice. I didn’t do this and it created some extra work, plus I got the first trench worth’s of soil on a neighbor’s plot, and I really hope I didn’t smother any budding plants. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Colleen, my fellow gardener, discovered that she had several stick-skinny asparagus shoots growing out of her plot (like me, this is her first year in the garden). We picked and ate them — they were pretty good.
Like I said, it was hard work, but I loved it — being outdoors and in the sun, hearing the birds chirp, and watching people go by. My thoughts receded and I was absorbed in the process of driving the shovel into the soil, breaking it up, tossing away rocks and weeds. One biker yelled out encouragingly, “You got it man!” A woman seemed incredulous that I was actually digging the entire plot rather than using a tiller. (I’m now a little incredulous too. But I’d much rather use my own power than gas or whatever tillers use.) Some dudes hung out in the cul-de-sac nearby and, I think, lit up some weed.
WikiHow also advises: “An area of 20-30 square metres or 200-300 square feet is enough to tackle on any single day. If you do too much on your first day, your back will not thank you and you may not finish the plot. Be sensible and don’t overdo it.” I must have done, like, an eighth of that. Geez.
Also: I’m going to explore whether my condo development could put up some solar power panels. But I don’t know anything about how this is done. Let me know if you can suggest any resources to check out.
Posted by nedlog at April 10, 2008 9:02 PM | TrackBackYou were getting in there where it lives.
Posted by: Douglas on April 14, 2008 11:50 AMI think you're right. The rhythm and the labor got under my skin. That night I dreamed about digging. All I saw was the earth.
Posted by: Mike on April 14, 2008 11:53 AMI had a fantastic dream this morning. It was one of those early morning dreams, very lucid.
My girlfriend and I were in Miami and I could see the entire city, it was a paradise. I could also see from above and from on the ground at the same time. A wonderful pageant was being put on and we wanted to go, but I had to do some shopping first and get some major necessities. But the colors in this dream were very real. it was the most beautiful city in the world. It was not the real Miami. It was the Miami that is not, but can be realized.
