The Endurance of a Garden

Recently, a guest visiting the farm described to me a unique Easter tradition in his family. Each year, when he was a child, his parents filled his and his siblings’ Easter baskets with vegetable seeds, rather than candy. After Sunday lunch, he would busy himself with planting the seeds, which became a friendly summertime competition to decide who in the family could grow the longest carrot, the juiciest tomato and the crunchiest lettuce.

It made me pause and think about the endurance of a garden and how it gives throughout the growing season, where the ephemeral sweetness of candy is lasting but for a moment, or until the next consumer-friendly holiday. In my mind, it is a metaphor for gardening the natural and organic way: by taking good care of the water, air and soil, we are rewarded by season after season of healthful bounties that sustain us. When plants are artificially coaxed from the ground with chemical fertilizers and treated with a myriad of pesticides, the land can quickly lose its viability. The short-sighted payoff is akin to the sugar rush we get from gorging on jellybeans.

Here at the farm, we welcome the promise of spring by filling every garden row with seeds and wonder at the way the plants quickly leap from the earth. Each seed holds tremendous power, a dense web of genetics and a visceral link to a time when plants didn’t need us in order to survive. We certainly love half-gnawed chocolate bunny ears (who doesn’t?), but we’d much rather continue the tradition of chasing real rabbits from our fields of teeming greens.

Jeff Ross, Garden Manager

Recently, a guest visiting the farm described to me a unique Easter tradition in his family. Each year, when he was a child, his parents filled his and his siblings’ Easter baskets with vegetable seeds, rather than candy. After Sunday lunch, he would busy himself with planting the seeds, which became a friendly summertime competition to decide who in the family could grow the longest carrot, the juiciest tomato and the crunchiest lettuce.

It made me pause and think about the endurance of a garden and how it gives throughout the growing season, where the ephemeral sweetness of candy is lasting but for a moment, or until the next consumer-friendly holiday. In my mind, it is a metaphor for gardening the natural and organic way: by taking good care of the water, air and soil, we are rewarded by season after season of healthful bounties that sustain us. When plants are artificially coaxed from the ground with chemical fertilizers and treated with a myriad of pesticides, the land can quickly lose its viability. The short-sighted payoff is akin to the sugar rush we get from gorging on jellybeans.

Here at the farm, we welcome the promise of spring by filling every garden row with seeds and wonder at the way the plants quickly leap from the earth. Each seed holds tremendous power, a dense web of genetics and a visceral link to a time when plants didn’t need us in order to survive. We certainly love half-gnawed chocolate bunny ears (who doesn’t?), but we’d much rather continue the tradition of chasing real rabbits from our fields of teeming greens.

Jeff Ross, Garden Manager