Nothing gives me more pleasure than to wander through the great outdoors and gather things to nourish or heal my family and friends. Besides, I really don’t have the patience or inclination to mange nature. Yes, farmers attempt to manage nature. Sadly, they are reminded every year that no matter how much love and care, along with sweat they put into their craft, Mother Nature can destroy all their hard work in a moment. Nevertheless, I am thrilled that there are people out there, like my husband, who have a passion for farming – hey, we all gotta eat, don’t we?

With that said, most years I do enjoy throwing out seeds and growing snap peas and tomatoes. I have a little 10 x 10 garden plot. That’s all I want because that is all I want to work. Every spring, I weed it and plant it, then occasionally water it. In the past, things grew with very little attention. I never thought about nourishing the soil though I did sometimes rotate where I plant things. Every spring Mike and Mathew tell me that we should expand the garden. They look at seed catalogs and claim that they are going to help this year. We should expand, grow all our food, perhaps have a little honor vegetable stand and it would be great.  It does all sound like a wonderful family experience. Even so, I know the truth; it’s never going to happen. Mike farms for a living. He works very hard, comes home after dark – there is no way he has the strength or desire after a long hard day to weed a garden. The spirit might be willing but the body simply can’t. Mathew – if he does weed, it is a focused experience with one weed, where he removes every grain of soil from every tiny root so it takes him thirty minutes per weed. And after an hour, he is done. So, yes, I do entertain the seed purchases, but I know it’s up to me in the long haul. Besides, I am not a farmer, nor do I want to be. Of course, I enjoy eating food out of our garden, it is rather thrilling to pick from the garden beautiful vegetables, but I do not enjoy focusing my energy on growing the food. Foraging is more my style.

In the past, things grew rather easily in the garden. The seeds never needed more than weedless soil and occasional water during dry periods. I sprinkled the seeds and they grew. This year, I learned that our soil was depleted; there simply were not enough nutrients to sustain an abundant crop anymore. The first sign was the kale. The cool weather seemed perfect for the kale but it was taking forever to grow. I asked a farmer at the farmer’s market about our kale – her kale was beautiful and abundant – she had so much it was on sale. She mentioned that kale needed nitrogen rich soil. I told her that I planted the kale where the snap peas had grown and thought the snap peas fixed nitrogen in the soil –  they do but not enough. She recommended that we water the soil with urine – it should do the trick and it really did. I sent my farmer out to the garden to add some nitrogen.

The main clue the garden was depleted, was that hardly anything grew. I guess after three years of not rebuilding the soil and only taking was too much. One thing that happened was none of the tomato plants that were started in the house took – though rogue tomato plants self-seeded and took over the garden. Some snap peas also self-seeded as well. I actually loved the idea that the tomato and snap pea plants chose where to grow – so I guess I was foraging in the garden after all. However, the rest of the garden was very lame. I did get a couple beautiful beets and carrots, mizuna and some mesculin but nothing like last year.

Chioggia beet

I’m not sure what I will do next year, my garden does need the love and care of a farmer and I am simply a forager. Perhaps someone will surprise me…