Be Open to the New and Different

“Can you show me some?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t have any red corn.”

Many years ago, I tried to explain to my young niece that corn comes in colors other than yellow. She absolutely refused to believe me. And since I didn’t have any ears of different colored corn in my possession at that moment, she took that as proof that she was right and I was wrong. Even when I eventually was able to show her some ears of Bloody Butcher (red) corn and Hopi Blue corn, she still initially refused to accept it. “That looks like plastic corn,” she exclaimed. Finally, I pleaded with her father to “please tell your skeptical daughter that I’m telling the truth!” Eventually, she accepted, albeit grudgingly, the idea that corn can indeed grow in colors other than yellow. But then she turned around and stated that lettuce is only green. I started to explain to her that lettuce can also grow in other colors and – well, I’ll let you guess how that little discussion went.

Like my niece, many of us have it in our heads that things can only be a certain way. Corn is only yellow. Lettuce is only green. My yard can only have grass growing in it and furthermore, it must be sliced short and imbued with all kinds of chemicals to keep it growing a nice deep green. All insects are bad and must be sprayed with chemicals to keep them away from my yard and garden. Vegetables can only be grown in rows. I can only have a garden if I possess a big backyard. In the words of the George and Ira Gershwin tune, it ain’t necessarily so. Lettuce can be red. You can grow clover, native plants, and vegetables in your backyard (and in your front yard too). Many insects are beneficial and part of a healthy ecosystem, and there are better ways than chemical insecticides to control those that prey on your garden. There are other space-saving ways to grow vegetables such as square foot gardening, raised bed gardening, vertical gardening, and the list goes on. And you can grow a garden even if you don’t possess a larger backyard.

Year after year, people are coming up with new ideas, concepts, techniques, and cultivars that help make gardening more efficient and productive. Just because you’ve done something one way for many years doesn’t mean that it’s the only way it can be done. Be willing to at least consider using an organic fertilizer instead of a chemical one. How about growing a purple carrot instead of an orange one? Or a black tomato instead of a red one? Different colors in fruits and vegetables are the results of various pigments such as carotenoids, flavonoids, and anthocyanins all of which have been shown to have health benefits. How about utilizing various techniques such as square-foot gardening, intercropping, and vertical gardening to maximize space (and yield) in your small backyard?

So when it comes to gardening (and for that matter, life in general), be open to considering new concepts and ideas. You might very well find something that boosts your yield, saves you time, energy, and space, or improves the health of your body. And bigger yields, saving time, energy, and space, and improved health are things with which I think we can all agree.