Neighborhood Garden Project: Glamorous it is not
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I once had an editor who loathed the media's "glamorization" of the farming industry. The silouhettes of tractors in the sunset, amber waves of grain, beautiful closeups of fruitful bounty. Farming is difficult and ugly, he said. The glamorized pictorial portrayal, he feared, gave the wrong impression to the public who took for granted all that goes into raising food.
I now know a little bit about what he meant. Growing a vegetable garden is hard work. Even when you've got three families pitching in on a plot about the size of your living room. It's not that we didn't know this when we started. I just think the amount of work took us all a bit by surprise. Fitting gardening into our schedules has been challenging. Coming up with a good maintenance plan has been trial and error. The weeds keep coming. The plants keep growing and producing. We've fallen behind on harvesting. Tomato plants outgrew their makeshift support system of bamboo and wire and became crowded by beanstalks planted too close.
But at the end of the day, we've been eating well and haven't had to deal with a pest problem. We, as novice gardeners, can celebrate a very successful first season.
Next week: What We've Learned.
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