Miracle of Growth Occurs for 100 Billionth Time

Every day, I go over to the garden for an hour or two to putter. Inevitably, as I'm watering and trimming and poking and tying, some friendly passerby will stop to lean on the fence and ask me how on earth I've managed to grow vegetables that LOOK LIKE THAT:


Usually, this is followed by a very well meaning comment about the wonders of synthetic chemical fertilizers, as in "wow, they aren't kidding when they say Miracle Grow!"

It never ceases to amaze me that there are people in the world who actually believe that plants might require the "miracle" of a synthetic compound created in a factory in urban New Jersey to grow. It's really not that complicated, humanity. There's no need to develop chemicals and test them in the eyes of bunnies to get your food to grow. Just put some shit in the soil and pay attention to your plants.

I'm thinking of writing a gardening book. I'll title it "Put Some Shit in the Soil and Pay Attention to Your Plants". It wouldn't need to be very long. Maybe a few pointers about what kind of shit to put in the soil and when to put it in, and what kind of attention to pay to the plants (I treat each plant like an individual, and check it over every day). Really, that's about it. There's an old addage that says you should spend 90 cents of every dollar on the soil and that's absolutely true -- if you have good soil, the plants will be quite happy to perform the miracle of growth fueled by little more than sunlight, H20, and good ol' poo. No sparkly blue weirdo package chemical stuff required.