Community Garden

Today was productive: bike ride in the morning, errands in the middle of the day, worked in the community garden in the evening.

Recently, after reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, I've been on a kick to eat more vegetables and less meat, especially stuff that's organic and grown more locally. It's a sobering book describing the rise in processed food consumption since World War II and the simultaneous and significant increase in health problems facing our society (heart, obesity, etc). He convincingly argues this is no coincidence. I highly recommend the book.

Anyhow, as a result I'm excited to grow some of my own food. It's relatively easy, cheap, and better for my health and that of the environment. My dad keeps a nice garden at home, but I'm also participating in the community garden. It's a place where anyone can develop a plot of land to produce their own food. Today Serena and I spent a little more than a hour turning a grassy area into a raised bed. Below you can see me planting beans (look closely and you can even see the little beans in the row!), but also note the raised bed that I built!


All this left me marveling over seeds. Here are these little things that hang out until they're planted and the germination is activated. My dad relayed a story about a professor at Michigan State who started researching how long seeds will "hibernate" and still grow viable plants. Apparently the answer is more than a century. Astounding.