Here at the Farm

Reading Michael Pollan's amazing book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, inspired me to get outside and start work on my garden. It's too early to plant things just yet, but the soil is starting to warm up and it's not to early to give my garden an organic hand or two. Between Pollan's book and two sunny 60 degree days in a row, I'm ready to be outside getting the growing process started.

I grow food to feed people who eat at my table. In addition to that, JT and I live and play in this garden, so I am careful about what I put on the soil or grass. I was raised by a man who was a longtime reader of Organic Gardening magazine (he called it Orgasmic Gardening, of course, though it took me years to realize what that meant). As Pollan points out, that makes Grandpa quite the gardening hippie. I'm aware of the things I need to do to bolster my soil naturally.

I do some natural composting (and, thanks to Pollan, I'm about to do a lot more of it). In the past two days I've layered the compost I have on to my garden plot soil. Thanks to my Dad's generous gift of a tiny garden tiller, within two weeks my soil will be easily tilled (no more hand-turning for me) and by early April, I'll get down the frost-hardy seeds for some early spring crops of radishes and carrots.

I always look forward to starting gardening in the spring, but I can't remember a year when I've been more excited. That's the combination of a cold winter and reading the Pollan work. And all that energy will bear fruit soon enough. Literally.