Restraint.


So recently I say to my girlfriend, "I think this year I'm going to take it easy, you know, try to hold back a little and not go overboard with the garden,"  thinking, of course, that she'll understand my urge toward personal growth and maturity in this hobby of mine.

Lettuce seedlings - planted a healthy distance apart.   

Her reaction?   To fall off her chair laughing.   She starts trying to hide it, but she can't and it goes from giggles to chuckles to all-out uncontrollable laughter.   I really, honestly can't figure out what's so funny....at first.    Then she wipes her eyes and looks at me and says, "I'm sorry. I really am.   It's just that we've been doing this for five years.  And you've said  that ever year."

Sigh.   Maybe if some you are gardeners, you will understand.  It's a teensy bit addictive, you know, and sometimes it's really easy to "accidentally" bring home "extra" tomatoes, herbs, seeds, bulbs or whatever from the garden store.  (Barbara Kingsolver's husband, upon seeing her dog-eared and marked-up seed catalog, said, "why don't you just circle the ones you don't want?").   But apparently, not only am I easily enticed to overdo it in the garden, worse, I've known it and been resolving to cut back since year one.

Cabbage seedlings.
With no radishes, onions, carrots or lettuce planted between them.    (Look, I'm in recovery!)

But maybe that's the way it goes.   Everyone has their challenges in life, maybe mine is to simplify.   And maybe it's not something I can do one time - maybe its a constant effort, a vigilance all the time.  And spring is a time of overabundance and exuberance.  What I'm hoping is that Dawn (the gf) just isn't seeing the incremental progress I've been making.   The first year, I bought everything, and planted it all on top of each other, and then got pissed when it didn't work out.  I spent hours trying to plan, and I ended up straight over planning it.    In the five years since, however, I think there has been progress.   I planted our front walkway and area in front of our house with perennials foraged from neighbor's yards, and with a little patience those areas have filled in nicely - I only barely buy annual flowers anymore.   I barely order from the seed catalogue either - my life is too busy in the spring to grow seedlings (and for some reason I suck at it -it's always too cold or too dry and I kill them all).   And I no longer try to grow potatoes and cucumbers and lettuce  and cover crops all on the same 1.5' square patch of ground.  That way leads to only inedibly small amounts of everything.

This year, I'm trying to go farther.   Last year I was very proud of my careful interplanting....until I realized that planting everything (essentially, not making choices) didn't mean I got everything.   Yes, I could plant lettuce and peas and tomatoes and onions all in the same 18" bed, and yes, the peas and lettuce would finish by the time the tomatoes got big, but what I realized was that nothing grew as fast or as healthily (or productively) as it would if it had been given ample room.  I can plant radishes by the feet of the future tomato plants, but not bok choi or peas, which will not be ready to harvest until mid-to-late June, which should be peak growing time for the tomatoes, which only really started booming in mid-to-late August because of their late start.   So this year, with limited space, I'm trying to continue to simplify, and that means making choices.   I can use the space for cabbages or carrots, not both.    It means that just because I could cram some more stuff in there, it doesn't mean its a good idea.   Restraint.   A total work in progress.

Garden May 2nd.

This is a lesson I'm trying to apply from teaching.  In teaching this year, I constantly found myself wanting to cram lots of stuff into the time I had with students - different ideas, concepts, activities...I found the concept of the ONE objective lesson-plan very difficult for me (not helped by the fact that I often am assigned to teach  2 to 3 hour classes!).   But of course, when I did breathe deeply and force myself to give ample time to one concept, I found the whole class went better.   The atmosphere was more relaxed and the students had time actually go through the stages of learning: being introduced to a concept, breaking it down, trying to apply it, practice, screwing up and being corrected, learning from models and, in some cases, mastery.  I could actually monitor whether or not they understood, and then help them when they did.  When I tried to go fast and dash over several topics, it did not go as well - the students simply couldn't (or in general, can't) absorb information that is flashed in front of their eyes (or ears - especially for ESL students).   They need to work with the concepts, experiment, try and fail.   Our brains are not sponges - we learn by doing, not dictation.

So...master of metaphors that I am, although teaching and cabbages are pretty different, the feelings they evoke in me are not.   In both of them I see the possibility of so many options - topics to teach, seeds to throw in the ground, space and time.  I need to remember that just because I have thought of a topic, or I see space on the ground (between baby cabbage plants), that does not mean I should enact.   My "discipline" is to think about what will best engender growth.   Plants and students need time and space, not clutter and confusion.   So my personal resolution is, perhaps as always, to fight back against the tide of "could be's" and possibilities - which might me leave, the students or my plants exhausted.   This year, instead of resolving to work hard, I'm going to resolve NOT to work any harder than necessary.  Don't plant that extra row.   It might be the best thing I can do.