Opportunities Series: Extreme Gardening! Part I

Everything is about the economy these days. There is a lot of fear about the state of the economy and what direction things will go in the future. The concern for the future is understandable, but the trepidation of “what is to come” can take us away from “what to do now”. Complaining about how bad things are and may get won’t put any food on your plate.

In reality, whenever there is a deficit there are requisite opportunities that would otherwise have not been seen or have not been there at all. I have been thinking about this a lot and posing the question to friends. I will share some of what I have heard and come up with on my own in an ongoing series called Opportunities. 

I urge those of you with ideas and stories of your own to pass them onto me for future articles. My hope is that this series will encourage a conversation that will lead to positive action.

Extreme Gardening! Part I
I bought my first house four years ago. Previously I had lived in a long line of abodes with no garden space. One of the really cool things about my house is that there is a fairly good-sized basic greenhouse on the property.

I have had a garden in one incarnation or another the last four years. The first year it was a bunch of large pots due to the fact that the “garden” was an overgrown area where the previous owner had stored a few junky cars.

The next year my then girlfriend cleaned out the area and put in a basic garden. The year after that I brought in a load of soil and manure and increased the size.

Finally, last year I had a fairly established garden. It was also the first year that I got my collective “shat” together and planted everything from seed. In previous years I would find myself in the middle of June and I would make a last ditch effort buying some starts at Farmers Market (or in a pinch … Home Depot).

This past year I really went crazy planting starts. I sewed them inside for a few weeks then brought them to my greenhouse for “hardening” in a series of seedling rotations. I got a little obsessed and when May rolled around I had over 1000 eager plantlets waiting for a better life in the garden “proper”. But my garden is maybe 10” X 20 and, well, I obviously overdid it. So, after beating myself about the head and shoulders I got an idea.

I got on the phone and rang up some of my friends who are generally as bad procrastinators as I am and offered them some free plants for their garden. The response was enthusiastic! Not only did I give away all my extra starts, but in return people brought me their plants and planting pots and conversation and even a couple of pies!

So, you might think my idea is pretend that you grew too many starts so you can fight hunger by acquiring pies. But, no, this is not the direction I am going in exactly.

This past Winter I thought about that experience a lot and the possibility of starting a plant exchange network. Then as the economy declined I decided it was something that would not only be fun and community building, but will provide vegetable food during difficult times (and who knows, maybe there will be a pie in there somewhere).

I am happy to host this at my house on the East side of Olympia (conveniently located near Ralph’s Thriftway). Anyone who is interested in being involved please call or e-mail me. This is open to everyone! I think this could be a really cool way to encourage gardening for food and getting together with other gardening friends new and old.

[This connects to the theme of a future article on how the declining economy has strengthened existing communities and built new ones.]

Thanks for reading!

Chris Hyde
250-1573
knifehistory@hotmail.com

Chris Hyde is a local entrprenuer doing business world wide as an importer and e-tailer of culinary, pocket, hunting and specialty purpose knives from his website www.worldknives.com. He also deals in antique knives and does consultation and appraisal work in this area. In addition, Chris is a musician, composer, artist and documentary film maker.