Victory Garden

Out Plowing the Back 1/4 of an Acre

As I hopscotched the canyons of Wall Street my first ten years of employment, I actually learned a few things. One of the most important, which I use often in teaching 8th graders, involves the ability to sell. The Dean Witter brass taught us to “sell the benefits.” Mark Kelly, my manager, would say, “You are not selling a stock, bond, or mutual fund. You are selling the benefits of buying that investment. It’s a different kind of sale, you are selling an intangible. If your client puts down 40,000 dollars on a car, he or she gets a car, something they can touch, sit in and drive. You are asking them to give you $40,000 for an idea. You have to sell the benefits.”

Considering the fates of the markets recently…I have something I would like to sell you that has myriad benefits. I like to get the word myriad in whenever I can. This product is really more of a system, or life change. I DO NOT want to be preachy, I can only tell you what it did for our family, you can make your own decision. I can tell you if you try what I am asking you to do you will: 1) Get more exercise, 2) Bring your family closer together, 3) Save money 4) Live a Greener lifestyle, 5) Teach your children valuable life lessons, 6) Decrease our country’s dependence on foreign oil, 7) Become the envy of your friends and neighbors 8) And gather hundreds of dollars of fresh, tasty produce.

Of course I am suggesting that you start a family garden, if you have the space. I have to say, as we were putting away the beach toys and cleaning out our locker at the town beach this past September, Kira, my wife, asked me, as she always does, “What was your favorite part of the summer?” This time it was a no-brainer, as we stood on the sand of Lake Quassapaug with the late summer sun setting I said, “The family garden.”

There was a certain vindication in my answer. For once I was right. I have been asking to do a garden for the past 5 or so years. My motivation being that I HATE to mow the lawn. I figured if we had a garden, less grass to mow. I also figured at least we would get something for our labors besides poison ivy. Standing in our kitchen last April 5th, I know the date because it’s my son Brian’s birthday) I said to Papa Bill , (My boy’s grandfather is an organic farmer of some note) “I’d like to do a garden with the boys, what do I have to do?” To which my lovely bride chimed in from somewhere else in the house, “It’s a lot of work. Don’t think I am going to help you with that because I’m not!” Kira was obviously thinking of the Jim Spinner who despises yard work, who hates to continuously hack back the encroaching forest, who once a year gets poison ivy so bad he needs intravenous steroids. She could not have known that Farmer Jim was a different Jim, a motivated Jim.

So with Bill and Suzanne’s (Kira’s mom) expertise, support and their compost, the Spinner boys started a garden. Believe it or not, the boy from Brooklyn actually put down The Times, got up off the couch and did some farming. Whenever I say farming Kira laughs. "Jim, when your farm is the size of your living room, it's called gardening." So every time I do farm, just to annoy my wife, I put on my overalls and my farming boots. It's always funny too.

The hardest part was removing the grass, we had to spade it out by the shovelful. Admittedly, it was back breaking work but Nick, Brian and Charlie helped me. It felt like we were doing something healthy; all of us sweating in the sunshine, clearing the land for our “crops.” It was a lot better than working the rowing machine at the Waterbury Y.

Usually I have to beg my boys to feed the dogs; a job which takes 47 seconds, I timed it. To get one of them to fill the dog’s dishes with a few morsels of chow is like trying to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to throw a block party on the Gaza Strip. But this farming stuff, they were doing it willingly. I can’t tell you how many times, once the garden was planted and fenced off, that I would ask Kira, “Where’s Brian?” and she would say, “Look in the garden.” I’d look out the window, and there’s my little toe-head, up to his wrists in dirt, weeding the furrows.

It did bring us closer together. Threee generations, working together for a common goal, a family garden, proved motivational. We talked while we gardened, about all manner of things. And to see the boys put their elementary school science lessons to work, not using a mimeographed sheet but real live earth worms in the soil was really cool. Having the boys explain to me the benefits of earthworms in the soil gave me hope for the future. To see them identify the stages of the water cycle as it relates to our garden, just confirmed that we were doing the right thing. Of course Charlie wanted to know, “Daddy, where does pee come in on the water cycle?”

If you are rolling your eyes at this point, I apologize. I have actually been avoiding writing a piece about our garden because I could not figure out a way to do it without sounding like a Hallmark card. But with the planting season on us, I really wanted to get this one posted. If this sounds like one of those saccharine Christmas letters that your friends send you about how perfect their family is (just once don’t you want to hear about their neuroses?) that is not my intention. I promise I will do another piece about how neurotic my family is. But I digress.

All we needed was the cost of the seeds (which Grandma and Grandpa Duesing thankfully paid for) and the family’s labor. To think that our tomatoes did not have to come prepackaged and shipped on a truck from Florida made all of us feel good. As gas prices were skyrocketing last summer, not only was a lot of our produce free, we didn’t even have to drive to get it. And I was conscious of the fact that this was good for the environment. And in some small way, it was good for the United States, that we were doing our part to decrease our country’s dependence on oil. Not to mention how good everything tasted. I have not had a tomato since last September that was even close to what we grew in our little patch of land. The heirloom tomatoes were my favorites. Of course as the first few ripened I told Kira we had some mutant tomatoes and I thought we should throw them out. Those heirlooms wound up being my favorite, once I got past the look of them.

Eventually we got so much produce, we got to give it away. A little bit of Christmas in August. We would dole the veggies out to our friends and family. I’d fill up a little brown bag and tell my boys to head over to the McNamara’s next door. And it made us feel good, we wanted to share our bounty. We’d go to see Kristen and Pat Lewis for a barbeque and just before leaving I’d say to the boys, “Go grab Miss Kristen some cucumbers and tomatoes and put them in this bag.” And I could see my boys beaming, choosing some choice cucumbers and some heirloom tomatoes to give to our friends.

So if I could try and sell you on the benefits of the family garden, from someone who hates to work in the yard. This garden was a rousing success. We learned about working hard, about working together as a family, about caring for the earth, about how veggies grown taste just a little better than veggies bought. Gotta go. Out to plant the back 1/2 of an acre.

P.S. We really could not have done this garden without Grandma and Grandpa Duesing. If you need a little advice from Papa Bill Duesing or Suzanne I am sure they would be glad to help, as this is part of their life's work. If we all do our little part to make the earth a little healthier it might go a long way.