The Garden Doesn’t Care

By Ted M.

I like control.

Not in the dramatic sense.

I do not want to control other people.

But I do like controlling variables.

In the garden, this can look useful.

I measure soil temperature.

I compare varieties.

I track planting dates.

Small differences matter to me.

Some people might call this excessive.

I call it observation.

For a long time, I thought gardening rewarded control.

The more information I gathered, the better my results became.

Then came the weather.

A week of rain.

A late cold spell.

A heat wave that arrived without warning.

The garden had not read my notes.

It did not care about my plans.

It did not care that I had measured the soil, labelled the seedlings, or recorded the planting dates.

The slugs and aphids certainly did not care.

The more seasons I gardened, the more I noticed something uncomfortable.

The garden often rewards attention.

It does not always reward control.

Those sound like the same thing.

They are not.

Control tries to force an outcome.

Attention notices what is actually happening.

Control says the tomato should be growing.

Attention notices that it is not.

Control works from expectation.

Attention works from observation.

I still label my seedlings.

I still compare varieties.

I still keep notes.

Old habits are difficult to abandon.

But I no longer think the goal is control.

The goal is to pay attention long enough to notice when reality disagrees with the plan.

Every season begins with an idea.

Every season ends with a negotiation.

The garden always gets a vote.

Ted M. is a VMG Student gardening in Vancouver, BC.