The Multitasking Garden

I love gardening. I get great pleasure from just walking through it several times a day and looking things over, noting how well things are growing, picking a few small weeds, and frowning at the flea beetles already attacking the collards. I also think about things going right or wrong at work and at home, day dream about the future, ruminate on the past. I relax in the garden. Sometimes I just sit in the grass between beds petting a cat and watching the dogs play. The garden is the cure for most of what ails me.

Each winter I impatiently await the new seed catalogs, go over them at least five times each, enter favorites in my database for planting reference later, create lists upon lists of what I want to plant, how many I need (want), and how much everything is going to cost. I spend days, sometimes weeks, creating a garden plan of what needs to go where, which companion plants are best for each crop, which antagonist plants to put far away. This keeps me busy during the winter months when there's snow on the ground and no greenhouse to play in.

Then all of that careful planning over the winter is completely thrown out the window once Spring arrives and the garden is ready to be planted. I can't help it. I just start planting willy nilly and hope everything comes out ok. Most years, it does. Last year I put up 75 quarts of just pickles. Two kinds of dill spears and two types of sweet slices. We gave away a lot, but we also ate a lot of those jars ourselves. Add to that the jars of sweet relish, cherry tomato and ginger marinade, tomato sauce, chili, pickled peppers, green beans, mushrooms, and hot pepper relish. And don't forget the many frozen eggplant parmesan and zucchini casserole dishes that warmed us on cold winter nights. Or the frozen bell peppers that I added to stir frys and pizza. Or the yellow ruffled tomatoes that I had stuffed and frozen to be enjoyed in January when company was here. The garden feeds us and keeps us healthy in the winter with organically grown goodness.

And last but not least, the garden provides a great place for napping.