Last year at this time, when we were just getting used to the idea of having a Squirrel of our own, I was cleaning up the garden and saw a little kale that I hadn’t remembered planting, just starting to take off. I decided to leave it there, or more accurately, I forgot all about it, instead adopting the pregnancy diet of milkshakes and girlscout cookies, neither of which was a successful crop last year.
This spring, with Squirrel approximately eighty months in utero, the rampant kale returned just long enough to sprout millions (give or take) of little seed pods. I left this, too, to see what would happen. Or, again, in the name of accuracy, I neglected it to go eat cookies and milk and eagerly anticipate the eighty-first month.
And guess what’s there now? Thousands (give or take a few) of perfect and delicate little wild kale plants, looking gestationally ready-to-eat. Which makes me wonder why I don’t try harder to be negligent.
I remember watching these Ruth Stout videos and thinking she had the right approach. Now, looking at this kale, I think I might have to garden naked and care-free for the rest of my days. I will never, though, not ever, smash a saloon.
An experiment in perma-culture. See? Not neglect at all.