Today is the inaugural Blog Action Day, and I am so excited to be one of over 15,000 bloggers blogging today about the environment. I truly believe that those of us who truly fall in love with gardening become environmentalists by default. Digging into the soil, eating food grown in your own yard, and becoming attuned to both the large and small changes that occur in the garden tie us to the Earth, and we no longer separate the garden from the larger world of nature. I know this has been my experience, and I would bet that many other gardeners have had the same experience.

When you become intimately involved in working with nature, as all organic gardeners do, nature will thank you by teaching you things along the way. If everyone gardened, REALLY gardened, I have to believe that we wouldn't be in the environmental mess we are today. Don't believe me? Okay. Here are three things I learned from gardening organically.

Lesson #1: Once chemicals of any kind are dumped on a piece of land, it takes a very, very, very long time for the soil to recover.
When I moved into my current house, one of the first visitors I received was a neighbor who wanted my assurance that I would keep up the regular ChemLawn regimen that the former owner had. Needless to say, they left disappointed, because I knew long before owning a home that I would never purposely spray chemicals anywhere near where my family lived. But stopping the chemical warfare on my lawn and garden was only the first step. I can't even tell you how eerie it was to dig in the soil here to plant the first few shrubs we purchased for our yard, and to see nothing but dirt. No earthworms, no spiders, no ants, no slugs, snails or beetles. The soil was completely and totally devoid of life. We know that synthetic fertilizers and pesticides kill everything in the soil. Grass grows, but only if its addiction is regularly supplied with more chemicals. Through the past several years of organic gardening, adding compost, leaf mold, and manure to my soil, and having a completely chemical-free yard, I am now seeing life return to my soil. Compared to really healthy soil, mine is still sparsely populated, but it is improving. And, with the return of worms and insect life to my yard, I've seen birds (other than pigeons) return to my yard. It will take years longer for my yard to completely recover. And that's the story in just one person's 1/4 of an acre. When you extrapolate that to all of the yards, all of the corporate landscapes and industrial sites in the world, the idea of the damage we're doing really is terrifying.

Lesson #2: Strawberries do not grow in Michigan in December. Or November, January, February, March and April.
Growing your own food gives you a solid, practical education in how messed up the nature of our diets is. And that's not even getting into the proliferation of fast food restaurants that dot our landscapes. The fact that we expect, and even demand, strawberries, kiwis, and peppers in the middle of a Michigan winter shows how out of touch many of us are with natural cycles and the reality of the impact our diet has on the world at large. When you grow your own food, or purchase from local farmers, you are saving the environment from the fossil fuels used to transport produce from other parts of the world. You are supporting local agriculture, and you are more attuned to your climate and regional realities. Even more, I honestly believe that once someone has toiled in their own garden, amending soil, planting, nurturing---that they no longer expect their produce to be dirt cheap. Once someone has grown their own food, they understand the labor that goes into agriculture, and it becomes more of a valued commodity. Suddenly, paying a little more for organic produce doesn't seem like such a high price to pay.

Lesson #3: "Normal" is pathetically abnormal.
Swaths of emerald-green lawn, even in the middle of summer, whole neighborhoods devoid of shade trees, and restrictions on what types of plants homeowners can grow are all "normal" in many neighborhoods, and are touted as ways to keep property values high and neighborhoods looking attractive. The amount of water, fertilizers, and weed killers needed in the upkeep of "normal" is depressing. Whole subdivisions are built, and the landscape is scraped bare so that people can have McMansions farther out in the suburbs. Driving twenty or more miles to work so that we can live in that "wonderful community" is normal. Never experiencing the joy of woodpeckers in your trees or toads in your yard is normal. Children sitting in front of televisions and computers for hours at a time is normal. When I think of how few of the people I know eschew the normal for the natural, it is downright depressing. Gardeners seem to automatically be able to break free of "normal." We grow our own food and flowers, spend time outside in the fresh air and sunshine, and live a good part of our lives dictated by our climate and weather conditions. This is natural and right.

There you have them, my three lessons learned from gardening. I really do think that if the majority of people learned these simple lessons, and lived their lives by them, the world, and certainly the environment, would be better for it.