With the joyous arrival of spring, life seems to appear in beautiful color once again | Opinion
Hello, spring! When you arrive, the party gets started: life comes back to life. Springtime boosts our moods with radiant colors, enticing scents and warmer, longer days. The dawn chorus of birds sing, “Hallelujah!” And here comes the spring pageant of peas, asparagus, lettuce, strawberries and herbs. Spring, we can eat you!
A less jubilant tableau can be found in the grocery aisles, due to spikes in “eggflation.” Egg prices are twice what they were a year ago. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts current prices will increase 40% by year’s end. Consumers, gravitated by elevating egg costs, ponder rearing their own chickens. Start-up cost? Around $3,000, according to USA Today, unless that’s another kind of chicken chicanery.
Eager to offset the steep cost of eggs? Head straight to your home garden of bargains. The roughly 25% of American households who garden — over 75 million smiling, sun-hatted people — participate in what you could call an underground economy. It’s estimated that investing $100 every year on supplies for a home-grown vegetable garden yields savings of $1,000 a year per family reckoned in supermarket fruit and vegetable prices, which might significantly increase should key tariffs be imposed.
Compare that to last year’s average annualized Nasdaq return of 9%-10%. The S&P 500’s return on investment for 2024 was under 25% — about the same as a major hedge fund. You start costing out your garden’s return on produce and you’re looking at a phenomenal 1,000 per cent yield. Call it a growth stock.
What we discover at our supermarket is a dystopic alternative reality. Fleeing the egg department, we retreat to ye olde produce department. Here, we are spectators suspended in belief in a twilight zone of vegetal simulacra. The color (boosted by ethylene), glow (artificial lighting) and sheen of the fruits and veggies (regularly spritzed with water) are ... artificial. These travel-worn commodities reflect not nature but produce suppliers’ bottom-line priority — profits — over freshness, fragrance, flavor, texture and nutrition. (e.g. everything that matters).
This is why we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. Worldly concerns are far from our minds in the home garden’s multiplex of values: tangible, intangible, of this moment and long-term. You’re in control of an epicurean Eden of your favorite varieties grown under optimal conditions. Inhale the aroma suffused by fresh flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables. Money can’t buy such vine-ripened happiness. Utopia!
The garden is all good, providing sustenance for body, soul and mind. Gardening provides exercise rewards on par with brisk a walk or bicycling. Here, a few yards away, is a serene oasis: your go-to therapeutic zone where stress, anxiety and depression don’t stand a chance. The presence of flowers alone is a proven antidote for the blues.
Life-extending health insurance grows in your backyard. Consuming plentiful fruits and vegetables is key to preventive medicine, packed as they are with dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and phytochemicals. Your daily fruit and vegetable intake is a proven defense against cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, cancer, osteoporosis, pulmonary diseases and respiratory problems. So eat your spinach!
Doctors worldwide are now writing prescriptions for patients that promote vegetables, fruits and exercise. So here is your Rx, in 20 words or less: Start your garden soon, rev up your immunity and live a longer, healthier life. Join me in welcoming spring!