Foodroom Gardening: No Rows, No Woes
As I battle mud and mosquitoes in this wet year, in the wallow that used to be our garden, I think faraway, crazy thoughts. I keep trying to imagine a future time when all human beings would be responsible for their basic food necessities just as they are responsible for their own bodily cleanliness and cooking meals. Could every home have a sort of foodroom adjoining the bathroom, where the basic yearly food could be produced? Ideally there would be a composting bin or two, plus a cistern or rain barrel to catch water, all geared to take no more time than a daily shower, shave, teeth brushing, and hair combing.
The first thing that would have to disappear to save space would be garden rows. Have you ever thought about how stupid rows are? Rows came into existence to accommodate machine and human traffic. Without them, a garden can produce twice the amount of plants or more. My imaginary foodroom would be elevated even more than raised beds, walled up so I could sit or stand next to it on either side and accomplish all planting and weeding comfortably by hand. Weeding would be done with a trowel from a standing or sitting position. Gone would be all the primitive backbreaking bending over that makes gardening by hand so tiresome. Once a plant produces its food, it could be pulled out and another started in its place. Elderly people could go on gardening until they were a hundred years old and never once have to get down and crawl along like I do now. Kids would be more easily cajoled into the work because you could describe it to them as merely playing in the dirt, like a sandbox. Adults who like office work would see the garden bed was just another desk.
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