High Elevation Gardening Web Log "Blog"

Like a good pot roast, gardening is done slow time, especially with plants. It’s best to plant them small and let them grow big, allowing them slowly to get acquainted with their surroundings. If they’re double- timed planted big, they don’t acclimate well, suffering shock and desiccation. Besides, who wants a gang of instant teenagers? Part of the pleasure is watching them grow up.

The seasons aren’t on speed dial, either. Some yahoo always wants winter “get a move on.” Such language will likely result in June snowstorms. Pushing the seasons elicits a push back. “Tired of winter” doesn’t mean an early spring. As my Greek professor said, “Gentlemen, we don’t break God’s law. We break ourselves against it.” That’s certainly true with global warming.

Instant gratification motivates speed gardeners to heat up their yards by plastering them with gravel, concrete, and asphalt. After heating themselves up radiating their yards, they go inside the house and flip on the air conditioner.

One of the worst things the English ever did was to invent the clock. Actually, the malady of keeping time goes way back to 7th century Muslims. However, the mechanical clock was invented by Richard of Wallingford in 1336. The problem with the clock is that some damned fool is always trying “to beat the clock” which is akin to running “a race against time.” Another chronological malady is being “on time” or, worse yet, “being late.” I’ve even heard fast track, stopwatch gardeners say that their tomatoes are “late this year” as though they needed a tardy slip.

A garden takes “its own good time,” like the tortoise in the tortoise and the hare. By now, we should know enough to bet on the tortoise rather than the hare, but we don’t. Harried, we continue betting on the hare. Better yet, we should sync with real time.

Several years ago when rafting down the American River, the rafter, a doctoral student in philosophy at Berkeley, philosophized about running the rapids. “The first principle is: don’t fight the water’s power. You’ll lose and crack your head on a rock or get sucked into a whirlpool. The second is: cooperate with it and you might win. No guarantee, but a fighting chance.” Don’t fight the natural processes, use them, relax, enjoy the ride, and you might get there. No speed trials in the backyard.

Dana Prom Smith is a Master Gardener volunteer and coordinating editor of the Master Gardener Column for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. He can be contacted at stpauls@npgcable.com. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call Hattie Braun, the Master Gardener Program Coordinator, at 774-1868 ext.17 or visit our Web Site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.