The Politics of Gardening

My mother always told me her favorite season was spring. As someone who loves fall, I never really empathized with her opinon. She always told me that everything was leafing out, flowering and coming to life, whereas during the fall everything is going dormant or dying. It's an interesting metaphor and as time goes on I lean more and more toward favoring her opinion. It could be that during my youth I yearned to be older, and now as I grow older I cling to youth, renewal and rebirth. Or it could be that I just like pumpkins and apple picking. At the heart of it, I think it goes deeper and is much more psychological than we even realize.

During the spring it's hard to think about much other than our garden as everything comes back to life. Madeline is usually put-off by the hustle and bustle of the gardening, which I never recall doing as a child. "Gardening" defined by my parents was simply the process of growing fresh tomatoes for vine-ripened harvesting. It may be that due to a lack of taste for tomatoes I never noticed the garden. Or I was simply too busy playing TV or Cartoon Tag with my neighbors. Madeline's new Tag Line is "If we don't do it, we won't die. We can just go to the store", meaning we don't need to garden because we can just purchase our produce at the grocery store or farmers market. While gardening began as a hobby, it's become so much more and even a political statement. I shrugged off Maddie's original comment until she said it again the following day. I couldn't ignore her statement the second time. "Madeline" I said. "You're right. We can just buy our food at the store but we don't because it's healthier for our environment and someday, if we don't, we could die". She was perplexed by this retort, so I continued. "The price of food is going up very high and there are people all over the world right now who cannot afford to buy food at the store." She asked why. "Because there is getting to be more people than food and because a lot of our food is being used as fuel for vehicles". She thought about this for awhile and even had some excellent ideas to solve the problem. I told her that we can afford to buy food at the store, but that we'd rather grow our food and use the money for fun instead of food. It definiely made her think a lot about the balance and economics of life and perhaps a little beyond the confines of our property lines. Maybe next time we ask her to plant a seed, she'll take us up on the offer. After all, she knows as well as anyone in our family that almost nothing beats popping a freshly picked raspberry right into your mouth.