The Price of Fresh Strawberries

More than 20 years ago, I began reading this magazine to increase my abstract knowledge about gardening, among other things, and I went so far as to plant several gardens with varying degrees of success. But the truth is, my thumb is gray-black and wilted on the edges. I will never instinctively understand horticulture; if it were solely up to me, we would have to buy all our strawberries. A radish plot in my childhood and a few anemic backyard attempts were the extent of my prior experience. By myself, I couldn't create that ticking, humming, growing phenomenon that is a healthy garden.

Begin at the beginning: In 1980, I wanted only three things: a lush backyard bursting with vegetables and sweet strawberries in infinite quantities, a working compost pile nearby to stoke them, and to write for a living. I had been reading Mother for 10 years, gathering ideas for a simpler and better life, and had even built my own house in the country. But I was not a gardener. I worked in a city as a corporate technical writer, freelancing a few feature articles for a large daily newspaper. The commute down the mountain twice a day was long enough to think about starting (1) a writing career and (2) a garden. Both, I assumed, were far ahead in my future.

One morning, I woke up with an idea for an article for MOTHER EARTH NEWS, which I wrote and submitted. MOTHER bought it. It was my first submission to a national magazine, and it set the course of my life. Twelve years later, it is my privilege to be visiting MOTHER'S offices again. When the question of a gardening article came up, I volunteered to write about the subject from the perspective of an amateur. "Seasons of the Garden" makes its first appearance in the spring issue with the hope of establishing my wife Joy's credentials as an authority on the subject of gardening and mine as an eager {though inexperienced) accomplice.—J. Taylor