Am I preparing for the apocalypse or just having fun? Both?
Spring is near and a new section of my Substack is sprouting.
The other day I inhaled long, and the air smelled like spring.
I’ve always been able to smell the change in seasons and weather—the sweet rot of autumn leaves, the cold, clean air of winter, the charged scent of rain hanging fat in the air before a summer thunderstorm.
That day it smelled like newness. That’s the only way to describe it. New air. New growth. New days.
This means it’s almost time for the garden.
I grew up on an acre of land which, living in suburban New Jersey is rather large, considering the density that most developers build houses. I lived up the street from a farm that dated back so far it became protected open space, its fields that once held crops and horses now overgrown after their descendants passed away or moved on. But the land remains and always will. There used to be a sign on my street for horse crossing. At the end of our long, narrow property was a grove of apple trees that used to be an orchard that spanned the backyards of all our houses on that street. I used to climb the trees and eat apples right off the branches.
Even further behind us was wilderness. There were paths and groves, strange gatherings of trees, and deer in abundance. My imagination grew wild here, imagining there were portals to other places and fairies who lived in the strange circles of mushrooms.
When I moved here, to an even more suburban place, I missed that wildness. Being able to stand in a forest and not see a house or hear a neighbor or street.
I missed digging in the dirt so I started a small garden last year. Two raised beds. Tomatoes, zucchini, some truly pathetic potatoes. I rock at growing herbs, so I had a ton of rosemary, thyme, marjoram, sage, mint, and basil. Had a go at bok choy, which garnered just a few heads. I tried to plant chamomile but the seeds were so, SO tiny they all but disappeared, whether by wind or birds, I’ll never know.
It was a good entrance back into being close to the earth. This year…I have huge plans and they start now.
I stray closer to homesteading every day.
My seeds came yesterday. Ellagance Purple Lavender, Salanova Butter Lettuce, Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomatoes, Primo Vantage Green Cabbage. I have bean seeds I harvested last year and leftover Jack Be Little Pumpkin seeds. My thyme and my rosemary bushes are dormant. I bought a rototiller and plan to do pumpkins and corn directly in the ground as well as plant a wild flower bed for pollinators. I have a ton of bulbs my mom gave me; I’d love to start growing my own flowers for cuttings. And goddammit I’m gonna grow chamomile this time!
What makes me laugh about all this is that we don’t have a fence. I have to build one around my garden this year just to keep out critters that like to chew on my leaves, but I don’t have the budget to do a nice one around my property. Our yard directly connects to both of our neighbors behind us and the one next to us. I wonder what they think of the crazy woman who is constantly digging and planting and building crap in her urban backyard while blasting Bad Omens?
Doomsday Prepper or Anti-Capitalism Enthusiast?
I get asked a lot why I do it. Am I prepping? Am I homesteading? And I just doing it for fun?
It certainly is fun, and I do it a lot for that reason. I love feeling the accomplishment of growing something from seed that then nourishes my own body. I love the routine of going out every cool summer morning and looking at new things that happened overnight. A new bloom, a ripening, a seedling that broke through the surface, a mushroom that magically grew out of nowhere. Cooking things with herbs and vegetables I grew is just…so cool.
I am definitely not Doomsday Prepping. I live close enough to New York that there is no way I’m surviving shit if that went down. And I’ve been obsessed enough with apocalypse games, movies, and books to know I’d rather just die if any other weird apocalypse happens (laughs in nihilism). Except if it’s aliens. Take me with you.
But more seriously, the volume at which I’d have to grow and build and maintain for two people is way outside my level right now. I could never. Probably would never! Who has that kind of time? Maybe as I grow my urban garden footprint and get better at it I could at least grow all my veg, but that’s a few years away.
Besides having fun, I do it because it feels good to take back one thing from capitalism. Why would I buy it if I can grow it fairly easily and very cheaply? I bought a packet of 100 cabbage seeds for $4…
I BOUGHT A PACKAGE OF 100 CABBAGE SEEDS FOR FOUR. DOLLARS.
A head of organic cabbage in my area currently sits at $7. I HAVE $700 WORTH OF CABBAGE AT MY DISPOSAL.
I will stop shouting. The point is, that buying seeds from an employee-owned, local company and growing food myself feels like a small act of rebellion, and those, compounded are what lead to change.
I have no set cadence for The Garden section of my Substack right now, but I hope you will join me on my silly journey of being that neighbor. :)
If you read and enjoyed this, please tell me somehow — comment, share, whatever. It means the world to me to build a community here. Social media is such a dumpster fire. I don’t even have Instagram downloaded on my phone anymore. I will continue to carve out my little niche here though.