My Loftiest Goal for 2011

It seems that my life is continually coming full circle. Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of helping my mom in the backyard garden: digging in the soil with a small trowel; examining worms (until I saw an episode of Star Trek in which worms were served for dinner and decided they were an unspeakably disgusting species); and picking sweet red strawberries, which we sliced and served over angel food cake with whipped cream. Ok, Cool Whip. (It was the 80's.)

Again, just after graduating college and shortly before leaving for my two year sojourn in Hong Kong, I vividly recall preparing my parents’ garden for a spring garden. Sitting in the dirt, talking with my dad about life and what was to come: this image played through my mind innumerable times as I adjusted with difficulty to life in an urban Asian city of skyscrapers and cement.

In the past year, I have re-discovered a sense of amazement in gardening- the sense of wonder at the potential of one tiny seed, the beauty of crumbling black rich earth, the fulfillment of participating in growing your own food. One of my most lofty goals for 2011 is to grow or glean as much of our own food as possible; to can, preserve or share whatever excess we may incur. For this, we will need access to more than just our apartment patio container garden.

So past months have included many concerted efforts to amend the soil in my parents’ clay-like garden plot, which hasn’t produced anything worth eating in years. Manure, fallen leaves, and green matter have all been added to the area, and lush green grass now covers most of the plot - a very promising sign. This week I put in my order for heirloom seeds. It’s not even February, and I am already itching to see what I can coax out of the earth and into my belly.

What will you plant this year?