I love the idea of gardening, but as an urban 24-year-old renter, I’ve hardly ever gotten my hands dirty besides occasionally plucking green beans and tomatoes from mother’s garden as a kid.
This spring, thanks to my grandfather, Bob Daining, I’ll finally have my own plot of land.
It may not seem like the most ambitious undertaking to some, but the world of gardening is completely foreign to me.
I don’t know when to plant, water or pick. Just to prove my ignorance, I’ll disclose that I accidentally once referred to farm work as “barning.”
Of course, grandpa makes gardening sound easy. He told me the other day, “You just put the seeds in the ground and let God do the rest.”
In this blog, I will chronicle the voyage of a greenhorn gardener’s first growing season alongside my grandpa, who has been cultivating his backyard for years.
It’s no secret that many people are starting to think about their food in a new way in recent years. For the longest time, the industrial era has been overtaking the dinner table by way of massive farm conglomerations and increasingly unsustainable “factory” farm practices.
At the same time, the head of the UN’s Food Agency recently said we’re in the midst of a world food crisis — partially because of severe droughts. He warned that the crisis could lead to more civil wars around the world.
As the world ponders the future of food, the U.S. isn’t helping matters by pouring more resources into corn-based ethanol.
While demand for food rises, farmers are filling their piggy banks because of increased commodity prices coupled with continued government subsidies.
More people are responding to the higher prices and lower quality of groceries in very simple ways, like by visiting a farmers market, joining a farming co-op or starting a garden.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a California man recruited eight neighbors to donate sections of their lawn for his own suburban farming operation.
After driving a bus in the morning, this man spends the rest of his day working the gardens. In repayment for the use of their land, the neighbors get free yard maintenance and a weekly bag of vegetables.
Not too bad of a deal, in my opinion.
While I doubt I’ll ever become a full-fledged farmer or solve the world’s food crisis, I think it will be beneficial to understand what it takes to grow food.
Plus, I want to make salsa.
I posed the idea to my grandpa over dinner at my grandparent’s house in southeast Grand Rapids. He has several four-by-eight-foot garden boxes and was willing to sharecrop one to me and another to my fiancee, Niki.
So far all I’ve done is till and weed the soil. Now I have wait until my grandpa says the ground won’t frost over again and it’s time to plant.