How To Grow Stuff You Can Eat

Handiy folding farm wagon pulled home from nearby nursery -Will Thomas photo

HOW TO GROW STUFF YOU CAN EAT

10 Simple Steps

by William Thomas

Step 1. Smarten Up. To get stoked and banish the false inhibition of backbreaking work, read One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. Then get a copy of Mel’s All New Square Foot Gardening to learn how to “Grow More In Less Space!”

Step 2. Speak Up. Don’t hesitate to ask your gardening friends for tips. They love to talk about their passion. And will at least save you from the mistakes they’ve made.

Step 3. Make Your Bed. Whether it’s a few pots growing herbs on your balcony, or a raised bed occupying that sunny spot in your yard, a box frame with no bottom filled with yummy organic soil, fertilizer, compost and mulch will save your back and keep the weeds (mostly) out. Recycled plastic planks are inert and don’t rot.

Step 4. Read Directions. Tomatoes don’t do well planted in early November. Garlic and kale do.

Step 5. Plant stuff. Use bare naked seeds, last season’s garlic cloves, sprouted potato halves. Or jump-start proceedings with starter plants grown in those little recycled plastic boxes indoors or purchased from the nursery down the street. Space as recommended.

Step 6. Water As Required. From the rain barrels collected off your roof. And other non-chlorinated sources.

Step 7. Pull A Few Weeds. Just so you feel like a real gardener. There won’t be many. (See Fukuoka.)

Step 8. Relax. Seeds have grown all by themselves for 500 million years. Once planted, they know what to do. What’re all those little green shoots poking up? You did label everything or draw a crude planting chart, right?

Step 9. Be Nice. Speak kindly to your plants. Play music. Express gratitude often. Remember, everything is vibration.

Step 9. Enjoy. Digging your hands into rich loamy soil re-establishes a primal connection that refreshes the soul and quietens an overheated brain. There are few activities more satisfying than stepping outside to pick some green onions, tomatoes, beans, beets and strawberries for dinner.

Step 10. Sufficiently Green. Happy plants are prolific, “volunteering” for extra duty year after year. You will be astounded by how much bounty can be harvested from a small area. And, once your soil’s established, how much money you save in the organic produce section of your local farmers market or co-op. A single 4’x4’ raised bed, or one of those small prefab greenhouses, can hardly provide food self-sufficiency for you and yours. But using your newfound gardening skills to scale up a mini green empire at home—or even better, in your nearest community garden—could make up the vital difference when petroleum-intensive industrial crops fail and supply chains snap. Plus, home grown’s more better!