Why do I garden?

I just finished reading the book The $64 Tomato, it was another great read. While the author, who was the main character of the book had more money then I, I found myself and lots of others that I know just like him. In fact, I read quite a few gardening blogs and I find it interesting that a lot of us are a like. Towards the end of the book he asked the question, why do I garden? He goes on to say he does it for the food and maybe that's the common thread among all of us, that we all garden for the food. But I think we all do it for much more than just the food. For me it's something I enjoy, its something that Anthony and I can do together and something that I know more about than he. Since he seems to know much more about cooking than I and well when it comes to dogs, most of the time we just agree to disagree.

I started gardening when Anthony went off to Culinary School. Since I wasn't there with him and I certainly didn't want to be, it was my way of helping him. If I grew fresh herbs of all kinds then he could try to cook things he might not have been able too. And that's how it all began. Shortly after the herb plant purchase, I bought a few tomatoes, a cucumber or two, 3 peppers and zucchini. The next year it was bigger and this year it is biggest. I try to be as organic as possible although sometimes the bugs get the best of me and I lose self control and spray the plants with some chemical that I will never be able to pronounce but that only happens once maybe twice in a season.

Another commonality I think that all gardeners is how a tiny seed turns into a huge tomato plant or a prolific almost annoying zucchini. There is something magical about this process of which you can study and read all the books you want and think you understandthe process but it is still magical, no matter how you look at it.

But lastly and probably the biggest reason I garden is HOPE. With each season it brings new hope. Hope that you will have a better year than the last or that new variety you picked out of a catalog will be your best choice yet. When summer is over and all the plants have given up, and the garden is sleeping, each gardener dreams of what will come next year. And lets face it, only the bugs remember what happened the year before, cause you can count on them coming back the following year. Each garden brings new hope , every year and even every season, maybe that's why they have become so popular in recent years, cause in the world that we live in everyone needs a little (or a lot) of Hope. So my question to you is why do you garden?