Living Off the Land

This spring has been an odd one so far in many respects. It arrived with a BANG here in Maryland, with some record-high temperatures for the month of March. I have switched our heat pumps from heat to air conditioning and back to heat multiple times in the past few weeks. I have worn everything from short shorts to my down jacket. But the weather is not the only strange thing.

Normally, I plant our vegetable garden as early as the soil can be worked. But for some reason, this spring I have been oddly uninterested in pulling out my seeds and hoeing my beds. So the only one left to take up the slack has been my husband. And Mr. Balancing Act has been abnormally gung-ho. Of course, he does everything in the polar opposite way from me.

Whereas I like to start all my plants from seed, he has gone out and purchased seedlings. I like to scatter my seeds in a haphazard manner. If I make something resembling rows, they are freestyle and rarely straight. Mr. Balancing Act makes his rows perfectly straight, aligned with the edges of our raised beds. I like to upend a seed package and shake. He carefully removes one seed at a time and places it in its correct position. His beds look organized and regimented. My beds look like some plants happened to grow there. Whenever a "volunteer" plant appears that I recognize, I make sure to keep it right where it has planted itself. Often these "volunteers" turn out to be the most prolific and hardy specimens in the whole garden. Needless to say, my husband will make quick work of a volunteer, unless I get out there and protect it in some way, pretending I put it there on purpose. (Shhh.)

I say "my beds" because today I suddenly got the urge to plant!  It came upon me after the days of rain kept me mostly indoors, vacuuming and mopping, folding laundry and washing dishes, desperate for some blue sky and sunshine. I hoed out a bunch of weeds, made a few sloppy furrows, and scattered my seeds liberally. I put in black Tuscan kale, mesclun, collards, carrots, and a whole package of delphinium seeds. Keep your fingers crossed that our free-ranging chickens will keep their scratching claws out of my newly planted bed!

Putting in a garden is a great way to get the freshest produce possible while also controlling exactly what kinds of fertilizers and amendments are added (or not!) to your soil, and therefore your food. In addition, you receive all the benefits of being outdoors, like Vitamin D from the sunshine, fresh air in your lungs, and great exercise for your muscles from hoeing, weeding, lugging the watering can, and harvesting. You know how they say chopping wood warms you twice? Well, growing your food in your own garden feeds you at least twice!