Last week I sowed seeds for my balcony salad bar. Despite a few days of torrential rain, the seeds withstood a washout and have germinated. The waiting list for a community garden plot in Arlington is one to two years (really irritating considering all of the untended plots I count while running by) and I no longer have even a rented backyard to dig around in, so container gardening it is!
I planted
Encore lettuce mix,
arugula,
Tatsoi (an Asian green related to bok choy), and
Minutina (a succulent green that looks like grass)—all varieties we grew at the Local Food Project at Airlie, but this is my first attempt at cultivating them in pots.
There’s something very intimate about having these baby plants right outside my door. Rather than being out in the field, away from my house, my kitchen, and my dinner table, these greens seem like members of my household, more like houseplants than crops, except that I will eventually eat them, the ultimate plant/human connection. Already I am doting on them (see how many baby pictures I posted?) and I imagine they’ll become a regular fixture in my everyday life as the temperatures warm up, the sunlight stays later, and the leaves become mature enough to clip for salads.
Growing food in pots has its limits (last year’s tomato plant got fried to a crisp before putting out more than a few leaves), but there’s something special about it that ties into household subsistence. In a city, people depend on imported goods for even their most basic needs. Harvesting a bit of supper from a balcony (or front stoop or back porch or windowsill) emancipates city dwellers from the oppressive role of constant consumer and turns them into producers, if only on the smallest of scales. I’m looking forward to eating off my own land.
Last week I sowed seeds for my balcony salad bar. Despite a few days of torrential rain, the seeds withstood a washout and have germinated. The waiting list for a community garden plot in Arlington is one to two years (really irritating considering all of the untended plots I count while running by) and I no longer have even a rented backyard to dig around in, so container gardening it is!
I planted Encore lettuce mix, arugula, Tatsoi (an Asian green related to bok choy), and Minutina (a succulent green that looks like grass)—all varieties we grew at the Local Food Project at Airlie, but this is my first attempt at cultivating them in pots.
There’s something very intimate about having these baby plants right outside my door. Rather than being out in the field, away from my house, my kitchen, and my dinner table, these greens seem like members of my household, more like houseplants than crops, except that I will eventually eat them, the ultimate plant/human connection. Already I am doting on them (see how many baby pictures I posted?) and I imagine they’ll become a regular fixture in my everyday life as the temperatures warm up, the sunlight stays later, and the leaves become mature enough to clip for salads.
Growing food in pots has its limits (last year’s tomato plant got fried to a crisp before putting out more than a few leaves), but there’s something special about it that ties into household subsistence. In a city, people depend on imported goods for even their most basic needs. Harvesting a bit of supper from a balcony (or front stoop or back porch or windowsill) emancipates city dwellers from the oppressive role of constant consumer and turns them into producers, if only on the smallest of scales. I’m looking forward to eating off my own land.
Have you read the rant that was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February about school gardening? If not, you should check it out. The author argues that school gardens take students away from more "important" academic learning tasks that are more effective in teaching academic skills. Would be curious to hear your reaction to it. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/cultivating-failure/7819/
ReplyDeleteYes, I did read that little gem. Was able to vent a little by posting a response on one listserv I am on. I thought one of the commenters on the Atlantic site actually posted a great reply. My main takeaway was that the writer's first goal was to create a stir (a success in that regard for sure), but that it's good to have something to push back against and articulate what we believe in. Several people on my listserv cited research done on the benefits of children learning outdoors (I am actually going to a talk tonight presented by a researcher on this very topic!), discrediting her claims that a few hours in a school garden will detract from "real" education. The thing that got me the most fired up though was her gross miscomparison of the trials of a migrant farm laborer (who performs backbreaking labor for low wages and wants his or her child to grow up and have a better life) to a student spending time in a schoolyard vegetable patch with their classmates and teacher. Puh-lease. Anyone else read it?
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