As I look outside my window, I am in full agreement that April showers bring May flowers. The garden is in bloom, and bees and butterflies are bustling about, feeding and preparing to launch the next generation. The weather is warming up, the sky is blue, and there is a vigor and excitement in the air.
Surveying the garden, I recognize that my wife and I have put a lot of money, time, and effort into growing some of our own food, particularly when considering the fruit trees.“Why am I paying $40 on a small, young dormant tree that basically looks like a stick with roots?”. It’s a gamble from the beginning. And besides the initial monetary cost, I’ll then take it home, prepare the soil, put supportive stakes around it, water it, prune it and worry about it for a while before it gets established and can mostly take care of itself. Well, that also sounds a bit like raising a child, come to think of it.
Gardening really is about playing the “long game”. There are few immediate returns on the investment, in terms of produce, at least. With many trees, it may be a handful of years before you start getting a real harvest. It’s actually better for the tree to pick off fruit in the first 1-3 years of its life to allow it to put down roots. It’s quite painful to purposely remove peaches from a young tree (though it’s no easier when a squirrel does it for me). But this is the tried and true wisdom of delayed gratification. Do the hard work now, and you’ll thank yourself later.
Sometimes, the investment goes awry. A miniature apricot that I planted in a large pot had so much potential, only to succumb to disease after a year. Apricots are notoriously difficult to grow and fruit where we live in Northern California, so I knew it was a risky investment. Perhaps next year I’ll go for a less risky choice.
Taking care of our own health is not much different. It is certainly an investment of time, money, and sweat. And there is no “money-back guarantee” that it’ll all pay off. But like putting money away in a retirement account, or building a garden full of fruit trees, the odds are good that someday it will all be worth it. Not only that, investing in ourselves brings immediate benefits, from boosted mood, improved sleep and less pain. So good luck investing in your health; it’s well worth the effort.
Happy growing this month, and thanks for reading.
Jeffrey M Pierce, MD 