Most people starting their first official garden — which I don’t consider last year’s container garden to be — would probably pick a few vegetable varieties suggested by local gardening clubs or extension offices, if they even put that much thought into it, stick them into the ground in the instruction mandated way, and go about the business of having a garden and enjoying the fruits of their labor.
I can’t imagine they take into consideration production ratios, mass harvesting dates, or crop rotation. Nor do I believe they bother themselves too terribly much with the source of the seeds or the history of the variety, especially as it relates to crossbreeding potential for a variety specifically suited to its exact and immediate environment (my back yard). These kinds of considerations, I have always felt, were more in the arena of die-hard gardening fanatics, farmers, and scientists. I am none of these things, and yet my garden planning has become completely hung up on these kinds of considerations.
As usual, my careful and diligent planning, combined with both my social/environmental consciousness and my innate laziness, is sucking all the fun out of everything. Not that I won’t have a lot of fun with the garden after it’s planted and things start growing, but this planning stage is not very fun at all.
Particularly annoying me at the moment is not being able to find out how much cornmeal can be made from X amount of dry corn. If I thought I might be able to get a couple of pounds from the space I am devoting to corn, it would mean being able to plant a completely traditional Native American variety of corn in my Three Sisters mounds, which I would very much like to do. But … we need sweet corn for fresh eating and freezing more than we need a few cups of cornmeal.
On a brighter note: I think my careful planning of planting dates and crop rotation may mean we have fresh carrots all year long. Maybe even radishes.
Well … I suppose I should get back to making some decisions about varieties and contemplating the garden layout. It has to be done by Saturday morning when we go to buy supplies.
In addition to math, I also hate hard deadlines.
A tangent:
A good plan brings success, and a good plan explores all possible problems, paths, and outcomes.
That seems to be a major tenet of my life philosophy, or at least it seems to be burnt into the very core of my existence. Who engraved this way of thinking into my brain? Someone must have. I don’t think something like that can be genetic.
Oh. Wait. I think my husband has been rubbing off on me. It does sound an awful lot like something a project manager would take to heart, doesn’t it? A project manager-engineer-safety manager, in fact. I don’t think I rub off on him at all. Not even after all these years. It seems, somehow, unfair.
I think I’ll plant one thing that is totally frivolous and useless … just because.
And now, really and truly, I’m going back to the horror that is garden planning.