Gardening in the window

It’s only the end of April, but already we’ve had some good luck growing food from seeds. Mike began the project at the end of January by planting seeds for a variety of lettuces, radishes, and mustard. During the ice storm at the beginning of February, our little window garden took shape:

Thanks to some bright sun, in March we had our first real “harvest.”

Since then we’ve enjoyed probably a dozen lettuce salads, 12 or 15 radishes, and a few side dishes of sautéed mustard greens. (We’ve also tried eating the radish greens. They’re prickly when raw, but pretty decent when cooked with the mustard.) It’s a modest success — we’re not saving a bunch of money at the grocery or anything — but I think it’s something to be proud of, considering that we don’t have a yard for a proper garden.

The next phase of the container garden is in development. I’ve got 6 healthy tomato plants shooting up, along with some jalapeño plants, thyme, some spinach of questionable health, and a store-bought strawberry plant that may or may ever show signs of life. Mike’s started up again with pole beans, cabbage*, and something else I can't remember. Warm weather had better come soon so we can move the containers to the balcony; conditions are getting pretty crowded in the windowsills.


*Mike wants to do some guerilla gardening when the cabbages get bigger and see how long he can grow them outside in the landscaping without the lawn crew/maintenance staff clearing them out. Worth a try.

Things do not change; we change

 (–Henry David Thoreau) 

We have two cars, a two-bedroom-two-bathroom apartment, two TVs, two video game systems, two computers, and two credit cards apiece. (And two cats.) When we feel lazy, we order pizza; when we’re bored, we watch something from Netflix On Demand; and when we see something cool in a store, we often buy it with one of those credit cards. That’s all pretty much normal for a middle-American couple in their 20s.

We rely on money and modern conveniences to amuse ourselves, lounge around in comfort, and pass time. But sometimes I realize that watching a Sons of Anarchy marathon has given me nothing except an elevated stress level. Or I keep track of what I ate for a week and discover that I ate more servings of condiments and Cheez-Its than I did foods that still resembled something living. Or I look at an old credit card bill and realize that not a single thing I spent money on that month is making my life better now.

Last year I made a bench for houseplants to sit on. By “made,” I don’t mean that I grew the tree, cut down the tree, shaped the lumber, treated the wood, or whittled the legs. Really, all I did was sand a board, glue some legs on, and finish and varnish the thing. But I’m still more proud of that piece of furniture than anything else in the house. And what if I had done all the other steps myself? Well, for one I’d probably be unbearable because I’d show it off to everyone who came to the door. But I would know that bench better than I know some friends. I’d be filled with satisfaction from a long job well done. And I’d be confident that I could do a lot of other things.

I want the things I do and possessions I acquire to have lasting value. I want to make and grow instead of buy. I want to learn and practice and labor over something instead of getting it mass produced. There are a lot of environmental and ethical reasons to make changes, but when I really get to the core of it all, I just want to feel satisfied. I want to make some changes so that I feel like I'm living well.

So bit by bit Mike and I are going to start living more simply, sustainably, and ethically, trying to lessen the harm we do to living things while also learning new skills and finding out more about the world and our own neck of the woods. Undoubtedly, we’ll sometimes default back to what’s normal and easy. This blog is just our chronicle of what we’re attempting and how it works out.