staking outa litte bio- fortress amid
the pesticide-saturated lawns.

And f have imagined at other
times that the simple act of getting
down on your knees before an array
of vegetables and flowers to tend to
them is about as religious as you
need to get, if you want to think in
terms of nature as the manifestation
of godly spirit.

IOs like lovemukiag.

While, of course. you do want to
get to the end. you don't want to get
there too quickly, Because den its
over,

When | believed that by garden-
ing { was changing the world, {wis
Missing the point entirely. tn gar-
dening, the idea is to let the world
do something to you. Take your

higging the dirt

TRICTLY PERSONAL

FOR YEARS LT have com-
plained to my wife that I
really should take up a
hobby.

tused to paint. | used to build
my own games. J used to hunt, for
that matter. Fused to make things
out of papier maché. J tried
macrame for a while.

For many years, I kept a hobby
farm going, insisting the whole time
that it was a real furm. and 1 was
some kind of modern Tolstoyian
character. farming and writing,
brooding upon the fate of the world,
Farming was too meaningful to be
compared to macrame or even
Paiiming.

it was ar organic farm, of
course. Well, us organic as you can
get when the slugs of July come for
the cabbages. and slug bait is your
last desperate hope, the trays of beer
having all been diluted by the rains.

{thas only been lately, having
lived in the suburbs for si rs.
that [ have gotten around to facing
the truth: that f do, indeed, have a
hobby. | just didn’t want to admit it
before. since the word “hobby” sug-
gests something of secondary
importance in life.

My hobby is yardening.

And that’s all if is. dusi a hobby.

1am) not going to save the world
by gardening. | am not likely to
achieve nirvana.

PE might save myself a liule bit.
But {'m not going to find the answer
to my intellectual questions in the
garden, lovely as the garden may
be.

Oh, well, E might find a degree
of peace and quict. But only so long
as the world allows it. Planting a
garden isn’t going to stop the bad
guys from running loose. Only force
will do that.

There's no point in kidding
myself any longer that there is much
of an ideological thrust behind what
ido out in the garden.

At various times { did see myself
as some kind of urban guerrilla,

500 Manufacturers want to help

Instead of going to church on mind outof itself, if nothing else,
Sundays, | performed my own com-
bination of therapy and prayer out
amid the plants.

But this is placing far too heavy
a burden on the exercise.

The truth is, when Bam out in the
garden | any just putzing around.

Sure. d grow food. But nothing
that T grow can't be bought ata
supermarket, and for less than it
costs me to graw it So Pim not
doing it for survival.

T used to fike to pretend that |

“as somehow striking a blow
against patriarchal society on behalf
of women, children and animals by
spurning the cornucopia of the mar-
ketplace and sustaining my family
on the foods E could coax from the
soi} with my own hands.

Nowadays, all fm doing, pracui-
cally speaking, is adding a little
extra favor for the taste buds.

Udo it purely for the pleasure.
part of which, naturally, involves
erazing on peas and lettuce as you
go, making great salads later, and
adding spices to everything else.

I liked. once upon a time. to
think that gardening was part of a
principled effort to live purely. and
in hannony with the soil, butt use
up more walter in Keeping my gar-
den looking beautiful than any nat-
ural ecosystem ever would. unless it
happened to be an actual swamp.

The bulk of our food comes trom
health food stores, local grocery
stores, and still, often enough, from
supermarkets.

Tecan et pretend that my little sub-
urban garden is having any signifi-
saint impact on our diet.

There’s the entertainment value.
I suppose.

By that, | mean the enjoyment of
taking guests oul to inspect tie
begonias. crab-apples, tomatoes,
onions, geraniums, radishes, runner
beans, thyme, rhubarb, beets, pan-

. lilacs, radishes. carrots, pump-
kins. zucchinis, and Swiss chard.

Hf someone oohs and dats at how
big the tomitoes are, so carly in the
year. one modesty admits that one
bought them already two feet high.
Sul, it’s all in the composting. eh”?

If someone fails to ooh and ahh.
you never invite them over again.

But the real entertainment isn’t
in showing the garden off. [t's in
growing it. | know this sounds sus-
piciously like official gospel, an edi-
torial you might encounter in Better
Homes & Gardens or Harrowsmith.

But it’s true. It’s the doing of it.

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You dort want itte be a bie deal.
You want it te bea very small deal.
the smaller the better.

How can you goof off praperts
you've gota political sovio-eco-
nomic agenda?

A true philosopher-gardener
finally quits being a philosopher and
just becomes a gardener. He may
Jose a world-view, but stands to
gain a tine hobby, indeed.

& WOOUSTOVES {7D.
TETL We. 3 Rd., Richmond

B toot ent ol Ned Hed

ry your bill

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