Novel Times, Novel Measures

Happy Earth Day, internet! I don’t know if you celebrate this holiday, but us Earthlings have been paying homage to mother nature on this day since 1970. Quite a tradition. And what better way to celebrate than by planting my garden!

I don’t actually have any pictures yet of the veggies that are now in the ground, but I do have some shots of the finished raised bed. First, for all of you out there waiting with bated breathe since my last post, let me share the fabulous material that I used to finish the frame of the raised bed: yep, urbanite! That’s recycled concrete, in case you aren’t hep to the urban enviro lingo.

My landlords are also doing some landscaping on the front house and decided to tear up some old concrete parking strips that led up to the garage next to my cottage. Well, instead of wasting a lot of gas to haul the debris off to a landfill, I decided to step up and use the concrete as a decorative yet functional framing material. Here’s the pile of concrete post-excavation:

I was working so hard to finish the vegetable bed and get my starts in the ground that I didn’t really take any pictures of the process. Whoops. However, the finished product looks pretty fine, in my humble opinion:

My landlord Paul even thought it looked professionally done. That was sweet of him to say. For my first attempt at working with concrete, I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome. It is not the easiest material to employ for this purpose considering the seams need to be pretty tight so that soil does not seep out through cracks. Thankfully there was some deconstructed granite — granite taken from one site and resued on another — left over from some temporary landscaping in front of my cottage that I was able to use to fill in some gaps and provide some extra foundational support for the concrete pieces.

This phase of Project Garden was completed on Friday — I took the day off for some much needed downtime and to finish up the raised bed. On Saturday, after cleaning up the mess I created during the concrete work, I walked down to Whole Foods and picked up some vegetable starts to add to my collection. I raked out the bed, pulled out some lingering ivy roots and could wait no longer. The moment had finally come to plant my veggies — collards, chard, tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, pepper and assorted herbs to start.

With the first big drops of a late spring rain starting to fall, I bent down over my raised bed and laid out the precious seedlings, in a diamond pattern here, a straight line over there. Watering in those plants, I felt that I was joining with them in some sort of time-honored tradition of mutual inter-species benefit, I agreeing to feed the soil and provide some water, they agreeing to grow tall and provide the fruits of their evolution. Certainly there was a feeling of accomplishment when my work was done that day. But more so was a feeling of contentment and even relief — the relief of knowing that it was still in my power to provide for myself by providing for the health of my environment. For despite the long years away from the field, hunched over keyboard in darkened office, it is still my heritage, as it is for all of humankind, to till the Earth and harvest the bounty of sustenance, of peace of mind, of the simple pleasure of soil in hand.

I’ll post some photos of my new veggie neighbors soon. Until then, just know that they’re settling in to their new environs just fine. And, once again, happy Earth Day to all.

Filed under: At Home, Sustainability