Egad, the first blog post since when? Oh dear. Well you know how it is, I could drag out a dozen excuses why my blog fell off the face of the earth for an entire season, but you would probably enjoy reading them even less than I enjoy imparting them to you, so let us move on! FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD, SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!
And with it comes a blush of new energy on the cheeks of my creativity. Work, of late has been humming through the mac, songs are born of the echoing womb of my guitar on nearly a weekly basis, and maybe most exciting: seeds, mulch, trellises and tools are stockpiling themselves across the grounds of the Hughes compound in anticipation of THE GARDEN. Oh, even writing the word makes me happy. Truly spring is springing, and a young man’s fancy turns to decomposed organic matter.
However, winter hasn’t passed us by without noteworthy events, just without notation. Perhaps most important to the scope of this blog is my wife’s subscription to Weight Watchers, and the practices and theories bundled within. Both of us have tried many diets, programs etc., with largely the same result. PTHHHPT. That is how I imagine one could spell a fart sound made with mouth and hands. But you get the idea, no? WW, however is a different animal altogether, so far. Therein lies more emphasis on healthier eating, not just less eating. The points system has allowed Beth to change the way she thinks about food, as well as the way she eats it, and really has resulted in a pretty impressive lifestyle change, not to mention a substantial weight loss. (Go baby!, you are awesome!) The best feature, from my perspective is the massive archive of WW recipes, which members (subscribers? devotees?) can readily access to make healthier eating easier for the entire family. Many of these (very tasty, and very copyrighted) recipes feature clever ways of substituting veggies and purees for eggs, sugar, oil and so forth. Before this becomes an ad for WW, let me just say that the key, at least in Beth’s experience, seems to be based on the fact that fruits and veggies are worth zero points, and therefore add nothing to your daily points limit. This means you can eat as much as you want, which is awesome. I shan’t run down the myriad reasons why you should eat more fresh veg, but I will say this, you really should. Since Beth (and the rest of us, by virtue of the WW recipe archive) began eating more vegetables, we’ve lost weight, had more energy, and generally feel better. And it has made my mission for this summer clear: GROW MORE VEGETABLES, PAPA.
Indeed. Though we are weeks away from planting time here in the Ohio Valley, my brain is bursting with new growth. Over the winter I’ve done much research and have decided to take a more ecological approach to gardening this year. Where in years past, I’ve spent countless hours tilling, watering, weeding and otherwise busting my ass trying to scratch a few vegetables out of a half acre or so behind my in-laws’ place, this season, I’m keeping it local. Producing my veggies, herbs and flowers in carefully designed boxes, beds and trellises right outside my door. This should make maintenance simpler, save water, and prompt me to actually be a more effective gardener, as I will have to walk right through the middle of the garden to go anywhere at all. I’ve also learned much about how soil works, how to make it work better, and how to get the most food production from a small growing space. Which brings us to Gary the toad. In a sec.
The key to better soil, in a word, is mulch. Mulching is basically the practice of composting in place. You add organic material in massive piles, right where your plants will grow. It rots, deposits nutrients in the soil, the plants use them to make wonderful veg, and so forth. A simple idea, and certainly not a new one, but just one of those things I’d never really considered. Gardening tends to be learned on a personal basis, from friends and family, traditions passed long through generations, some good, some, well… less good. At any rate, I’m big into mulch now. Ask anyone. It’s my new thing. And while gathering leaves, dead grass, and other yummy, decompos-ey stuff from the yard to add to my growing mulch beds, I met Gary.
I can only assume Gary had been harboring suicidal thoughts for some time, laying, half frozen under the bushes, as I’d never met another toad so bent on his own destruction. I first saw Gary when he fell out of a big load of leaves I had scooped up and flung into the wheelbarrow. In the cool of the morning, his lethargic body made sort of a dull, squishy thud as it hit the turf. I thought to myself, this toad is out rather early, or maybe it’s that I’ve just compromised his cold-weather home with my eager raking. I tried to gently urge Gary to move back under the bushes, where I promised I would disturb him no more, and he went. But not for long. Next trip, I returned with my wheelbarrow and filled it with more much-fodder. As I turned back toward the garden, I noticed a slight movement and heard a desperate “UUUURP.” There was Gary, pinned under the fat pneumatic tire of the wheelbarrow. Again, I gently escorted him to the safety of the bush, and went about my business. Two more loads came and went, and I’d figured Gary had learned to stay where wheels and rakes and big black boots entered not. I dumped the last load of mulch into what will be the new potato/broccoli/carrot patch, and grabbed my freshly sharpened spade to ventilate the sod a little so that all of the mulchy juices could get down into the soil. As I raised the spade to make my first stab into the dense ground, out hops Gary from the pile I’d just deposited, right under the falling blade. I just barely avoided slicing him cleanly in two, and resolved to let Gary be wherever he wanted to be for the rest of the day, and go on to a different project. When I checked back a little later, Gary was nestled, snug as a bug in a little pocket he’d burrowed for himself in the mulch.
It was then I gave him his name, and decided that he should be the keeper of the mulch bed, and act as a sort of health gauge for the soil there. As long as I was doing a good enough job keeping the garden healthy, the soil should always be so moist, warm (due to decomposition) and crawling with tasty bugs, that Gary should never want a better home. If Gary relocates, I shall have nowhere to look but in the mirror. Unless he jumps off the garage in front of the moving car. Then I’ll know it was just that Gary had problems all along.
