The Modern Victory Garden

The garden is a major component of our annual food supply.   I try to manage it accordingly so that we get as much variety as possible, optimize fresh harvests for daily eating, and provide surpluses that can be put by for later use when the fresh harvests are limited.  The amount and types of crops (and when I plant them) are all designed to meet those objectives.   Of course, it never works perfectly because nature will not tolerate that much happiness and success, but by and large we manage to eat well from the garden’s bounty on a regular and consistent basis.   

Growing really fresh, nutrient dense, organically grown food to eat is definitely the priority for me - but there is more to it than just that.   The act of regularly tending to the garden is important as well.   Our modern day lives, with its wealth of labor saving appliances and electronic amusements, generally encourages a much more sedentary lifestyle than our ancestors experienced.   While I don’t yearn to go wash clothes with a rock by the river, I do appreciate that a little manual labor - particularly that which produces something tangible for the efforts – is a good thing for the human animal.   Physical effort, spending time outside getting fresh air and sunshine, and living for a least a few moments each day away from constant bombardment of information and noise our modern world subjects us to- would be reward enough for food production gardening even if we did not also get some really tasty vegetables and fruits out of the deal as well.                      

That sense of “living in the moment” is made even greater when my husband or daughter join me in the garden as well.   While the management of the garden is definitely my domain, I often recruit help from my family or am the lucky beneficiary of them just pitching in.   Tonight was a classic example of this.   I needed to water some seedbeds to keep them moist because the weather (at long last!) is forecasted to really warm up for the next few days.   I also wanted to get the chickens out this evening to let them graze and forage for a while.   It takes quite a bit of effort to keep an eye on six plucky little chickens AND try to do anything else in the garden at the same time.   My husband knows this all too well, and soon joined me in the garden so we could talk and enjoy the fine evening together and so he could help with the chicken wrangling duties.   He has quickly become quite knowledgeable about our flock and their management and has been a great partner to have in this latest undertaking on our homestead.   He kept them all out of trouble and totally entertained for quite some time by grubbing about in and around the compost piles for worms and bugs.                                    

We both benefit greatly from time spent in the garden like this.   It is productive in that we contribute to the garden’s production capabilities (and in this case our chickens too!), but it also strengthens our relationship by spending quality time together working on a task we both benefit from.    Kitchen gardens provide so much more than just good food for our table.           

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener