If you’re friends with me, at some point you’ve probably heard me say, “The only real currency is the amount of energy it takes to plant a seed and harvest the crop.”. It’s a Marx quote that I overheard someone say at @caffetto years ago. It really resonated with me, and the time frame I heard it was 2017, when currency was obviously on my mind more than ever. I’ve thought about it at depth, and around that same time, built my first raised beds and tried some amateur gardening.
@vermillionfox and I have further expanded our gardening skills, since that first season, but this year, with COVID and grocery stores being cleaned out of food, that quote has been echoing in my mind more than ever. This year, as an investment for ourselves, we expanded from two raised beds to six! It was a ton of work and a ton of money. Soil alone ended up costing us over $700. Minnesota winters are drawn way out so we couldn’t start planting until early May.
February, we started growing starter plants from seeds in our basement with a 175W full spectrum LED lamp. By the time we started moving those plants in to the beds, all the vegetables and flowers had a great start. Lettuce, kale, paste and Roma tomatoes, peas, strawberries, onions, squash, cucumbers and zucchini. One of the smartest things we did in hindsight was surround each raised bed with flowers which brought all the pollinators.
I’ve been vegan for over a year, and at some point, I realized that 60% of my diet is fresh fruits and vegetables. The satisfaction of being able to walk in your back yard and garnish a wrap or sandwich cannot be understated. It’s been an huge sense of accomplishment and I feel psychologically meaningful to grow something in the face of so much loss, pain and despair in the world around us. Zero regrets on this incredible investment.
I’ve seen @lukestokes share videos on Twitter of his wild multi-vegetable apparatus and, although several weeks behind, once Minnesota warms up, we get hot, humid and lots of rain. I took these photos during an afternoon walk through of the beds and no longer have to be envious of others’ gardens. Watermelons as big as basketballs, copious amounts of cucumbers, and so many tomatoes I’ll have no choice but to be making sauce.