Everybody has an agenda, alright? Everyone.

Banky Edwards - Chasing Amy 1997

Author Micheal Pollan (of "The Omninore's Dilemma") penned a piece for the NY Times called, "Why Bother?" I recommend you give it a read. The whole point is to say that everyone with some dirt should plant a garden. I really don't think everyone will just yet, but he makes some very interesting reasons why we should.

The setup is a bit of global warming, why every choice you make has a consequence, and the hopeless feeling of no matter what you do, others are canceling your good deeds with their bad behavior. Then he goes into why you should plant a garden. I like this part:

But the act I want to talk about is growing some--even just a little--of your own food. Rip out your lawn, if you have one, and if you don't--if you live in a high-rise, or have a yard shrouded in shade--look into getting a plot in a community garden. Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it's one of the most powerful things an individual can do--to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

And so I've decided to plant a garden. And start a new blog called Pushing Up Daisies. This one is going to be focused on gardening and food preparation. My only experience in gardening is having a grandfather that was a dairy farmer and watching my father create a garden each year while growing up. Interestingly enough, I hated hard work and vegetables equally back then. Strangely enough, I've come to embrace both. Good thing, because I think it will come in handy as we move forward in this life.

Heck, it wasn't a hard decision. My backyard was an overgrown mess of every sort of ornamental plant you might see set up as an English Garden. More bamboo and roses than you could shake a stick or your hips at (garden humor.) I've let the front grass die in the name of water conservation, and I'm so ready to start planting things there as well. I imagine my neighbors will merely chalk it up to half-nuttiness being the guy that prefers to ride a bike to work when he's got a perfectly good car just sitting there (see my previous post if you agree.)

The deceased former owners were very into this garden, and while I'm sorry we let it go, its new life will be much more beneficial to my stomach and wallet. I am therefore going to move food and gardening to PuD and keep bikes, oil and beer (even though it's a food) here on YJDWT.

I'm still working on the bike knowledge stuff, so sit tight on that.