I’m so predictable, growing my own vegetables in almost spring like everybody else. Except that I live in an apartment and I have no idea what I’m doing. I read the instructions at the back of those little pouches I got at a co-op and considering that I did what it asked of me, I might have carrots, tomatoes, cucumber and some mish-mash of greens very soon.
Like I said, I have no idea what I’m doing. The good thing about all of this is I want to learn. I want to know how to grow some of my own food so I don’t have to walk around like a paranoid freak in the grocery shop. Me the eternal-label reader with very little trust left, is trying to get some of her funk back. I did well with a partial herb garden last year. I grew some chives and thyme. The basil got weird so I pretended like I didn’t know who he was.
My basil was a he, in case you were wondering. The chives were girls and the thyme is dried up, which is great because dried thyme ftw, right?!
This years crop is my second challenge. If I’m writing about it, I know you’re going to want to know what happens at the end. No problemo because I’m the biggest bragger of my failures. If I fail, I’ll try again…fail bigger and better until I’m making sushi like Jiro.
And you know we all want to make sushi like Jiro.
In a way, this whole experiment is sort of fulfilling my childhood dreams. I was always googly-eyed at the chili plant growing in a pot on my grandfather’s porch and yes, you can’t forget this story. Biology class had my full attention when we learnt the vitamin chart, just like Life Processes II did. I am the biggest lover of food that comes out of the ground and the people who know how to do it blindfolded each spring are my heroes. I don’t plan on getting too technical other than letting them germinate in this warm apartment. After all the messing around we do with them these days, they’ll be very relieved to be left alone. They’ll have their own moods and get to grow exactly how they want. I for one, can’t wait till they’re teenagers, a few weeks from now.
For now, this is just mud. That holds my future food. And makes me feel like that little seed. A small part of the change. In a world I love so much.