Get Gardening! The Earth Needs It. by Eden Riche

Get Gardening! The Earth Needs It. by Eden Riche 

Gardening is the main attraction in spring, so become a part of it. Help the world bloom and fill you with life sustaining nutrients.

Now that all the cold weather sentiment is starting to thaw, we’re ready to put our gloves on! Thought you were putting the gloves away did you? Nope you thought wrong. It’s gardening time. Spare yourself some voracious nails, blistered fingers and unexpected sunburns and grab a pair of gardening gloves! They come in cute colors and patterns for you prissy/sissy gardeners.

Gardening is the main attraction in spring, so become a part of it. Help the world bloom and fill you with life sustaining nutrients. It’s time everyone started doing their part. If you are an active participant in the game called life, then you eat food. Where does it come from you ask? That’s right. The Earth. The Earth gives us plants, animals, sun, water, pretty much all the nutrients a human body requires to sustain. So what gives us the right to think that the Earth is going to keep supplying us with these things if we don’t put our work in? I’m not talking about making money by going to work every day, I’m talking about working for the survival of humanity.

And what is really so bad about a little gardening any ways? Whether you want to plant trees, a flower bed, a vegetable garden, a full blown yard landscape, they are all going to beautify the world around you. There are so many rewards when you actually get out in nature and live and breathe with our Earth. You just know you’re making the world a better place. Okay so enough of this hippy shit. Hug a tree, yah di yah da.

In all honesty though, if you grow the food you eat, there is just something so special about that taste when it hits your lips. You literally earn your food and it feels just as gratifying as receiving that paycheck does every week. I guarantee it. It just somehow tastes better. Last year I had a failed batch of red beets that I tried to grow. They just wouldn’t grow over the size of a gumball. They looked like adorable little baby beets. I wanted to pet them. But I grew them so I figured they must taste good. Well I cooked them and let’s just say this: beet seedlings are not good. They taste like little balls of dirt. Thanks a lot Earth! Sometimes she gets the last laugh. Other times when my broccoli plants grow stalks well into November, I’m definitely the one laughing. Laughing all the way through my favorite sausage, broccoli & orecchiette or some roasted broccoli or baby food for the little one. They become the nonstop broccoli stalks. Grow it, you’ll see.

If you do decide to get growing, there are a few things you may need to get started. First things first. Some sun. Find a south facing area in your yard or on your deck and decide how big the plot will be. Second, you need dirt. Earth that is. Add some organic lime and some organic fertilizer to said Earth. Third- Seeds or seedlings. Put them in the Earth; add water and presto you’re growing! That simple.

Okay so sometimes it tends to be a little more difficult than that, but you get the picture. This is not rocket science. We can all do this. We learn about it in fifth grade science class. Maybe even earlier? Give it a try. Who knows you might just like it? ~Eden Riche