Maximum Yield USA December 2019 / January 2020 | Page 10

Before we knew it, our
garden exploded into a
colorful array of healthy
fruits and veggies.”
from the
EDITOR
TG Toby Gorman
10
Maximum Yield
I
s there anything better than putting food
on the table that you grew yourself? In the
spring, my wife and I planted peas, cucumbers,
arugula, Detroit beets, blueberries, and Mary’s
Austrian tomatoes in our resurrected raised
garden bed. Mary (who is not Austrian) also
found some store-bought potatoes that had
been withering in our garage. She cut them in
half and buried them deep in the box.
We waited.
Mother Nature worked her magic with the
help of some very rich compost, and before we
knew it, our garden exploded into a colorful
array of healthy fruits and veggies. First the
arugula, which we put in our salad, then
the blueberries, which we purchased from
Maximum Yield editor Cam Maxwell who was
raising money for his son’s baseball team.
The peas all developed at once and the
weight of them allowed them to flop over our
fence. Our neighbor’s dog helped herself.
And those buried store-bought potatoes?
Beneath a thick canopy of leaves, the tubers
grew by the dozens, filling up their place in
the garden box. Each night when she arrived
home from work, Mary went straight to the
box and dug a few up before coming inside
with dirty hands and a huge smile on her face.
Dinner never tasted so good.
We began to worry a little about the beets,
cucumbers, and tomatoes. Our typically warm
and dry Mediterranean summer had fallen
short of expectations, and we wondered if
these plants would produce anything at all.
Soon enough we got our answer. We
recovered a few good-sized beets, but the
tomatoes and cucumbers went next level.
They just kept producing. We ate as many as
we could, we gave them to friends, we gave
them to neighbors. I even offered a few to our
neighbor who we didn’t always get along
with and lo and behold, our relationship has
improved dramatically ever since.
Now, as snow threatens, our little raised
garden bed sits quiet with no hint of the
splendor that had filled it just a few weeks
ago. As I pulled the last of the decaying stems
from it, I realized it gave us a lot more than
nutritious food. It brought joy, helped fund
youth sports, mended a relationship with
a neighbor, entertained a bored dog, and
allowed us to share with friends.
Pretty awesome. Can’t wait for spring.