Remembering the Revolution
I’ve been in remembering mode recently. Mostly good things. And one of those things was our first garden, early in our marriage, while I was still a student in the 70s. We lived with another couple. Communes were good. Community was good. We found a nice big old house close to downtown Houston and turned our backyard into a garden. I was an organic gardener, too, because I’d read Silent Spring and knew that while plastics might be good career advice, chemicals might not be so hot for the planet.
Here’s how it turned out and I’ll summarize what the county extension agent told me. “You put in that garden, in what amounts to a food desert for local bugs and insects. Naturally, when they saw the feast you put out, they came to eat.” For us it was pill bugs. They swarmed us. We tried to drown them with plates of beer, but mostly they just died happy, and those who ignored the beer continued with the feast. It was pretty much the last vegetable garden I tried to do on my own. Subsequent gardens were mostly run by my wife, and I let her manage the pest control.
I’m saying all this because I think I might try vegetable gardening again. Tomatoes sound like a good place to start, and I like homegrown tomatoes. One plant is all a single guy needs, although maybe I should do one for the bugs and one for me. I don’t really know at this point. But it seems like something I should try and maybe next year I’ll do some okra as well. In the meantime, I’ll start researching how to grow a small organic garden, and do my part to feed myself and save the planet one plant at a time.