More on Urban Gardening

I recently came across a declarative statement made (I believe) by George Carlin.

“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways totally used up and worn out, shouting…man, what a ride!”

I agree with this inasmuch as it applies to our ability to actualize our fullest personal potential based upon innate gifts and cultivated abilities. These gifts and abilities allow us to engage life in joyous, exhilarating, meaningful and personally rewarding ways that, by extension, should benefit the world at large.

It is difficult, I think, to find time to figure out who we are and what our innate gifts are. Our minds and psyches are pulled this way and that by our jobs, families, school, television and entertainment of all types, the Internet, text-messaging on our cell phones and a myriad of other lesser and greater distractions.

Life was simpler during my growing-up years. After school or during the summer we had to mow the lawn and work in our mother’s gigantic garden. We also had to stay on top of our homework and fulfill some household chores – but then we were free to play in the woods or ride our bikes to common gathering spots where we “fooled around.” Adults articulated two basic rules; stay out of trouble and be home before dark.

I appreciate what I had then as I compare it to what is available now for youth as they are moving through the maturation process. My relationship to the natural world, to insects, plants and animals and to wild and domesticated food sources was an intimate experience that I simply took for granted. My grandparents had a fifty-acre working farm where everything that hit the table morning, noon and night was produced right there. I used to work right next to my grandmother in the barn, out in the orchards, in the garden and out in the fields where she nurtured huge marion berry, blueberry, raspberry and strawberry patches. I was able to identify the various fruits, nuts, vegetables, flowers and herbs that she cultivated and that she would frequently send me out to “fetch” for her. She died on Earth Day in 1994 – it occurred to me then that Earth Day was the perfect point-in-time for her to leave the planet.

Jamie Oliver, born in 1975 in the U.K., recently arrived in the United States to take on what he characterizes as not only monumentally adverse food consumption practices, but a pervasive disconnect with food in general. He demonstrates this disconnect by showing elementary students common produce items that they were incapable of accurately identifying in the raw. This is because much of what children are being fed, both in schools and at home is highly processed (the same is true for adults as well).

Here is yet another reason to consider getting involved with urban agriculture. P-Patch Programs are certainly one way of doing this – unless you are relegated to the P-Patch Program’s rather substantial waitlist. But urban gardening can be as simple as planting a small garden in your own yard, or doing some container gardening on a ground-level patio. It is also possible to do container gardening on exterior decks if you live in a condo or an apartment. Growing a variety of edibles in small spaces with very little expense or effort is easier than you think. I will focus more on this later on.

I am going to close by providing you with a link to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution trailer. It certainly provides food for thought.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/about/jamie-oliver-videos/jamies-food-revolution-trailer