how to build a plant

So I want to try something.

I want to see how long a person (like me, for example) can survive on the food that one grows.

Growing food...

Is there an app for that?

OK, well in order for me to eat in October, I need to start preparing now. Or trying to.

You know, they say it's never too early to prepare for the zombie Apocalypse.

Or the end of the world...again.

Now to start I first must explain my qualifications for undertaking this endeavor.

What makes me the perfect candidate for undertaking this?

Nothing

I've never been too personally involved with growing things. My parents had a garden, which as a child I dutifully had to weed...when I remembered.

Around middle school I started an herb garden, because I heard that herbs didn't need too much work. They were right! And for three years after I tired of my herb garden, my Dad fought to kill the peppermint. He is not an herbalist.

I don't have much experience, but what about  natural given talent?

Well, I am the granddaughter of a farmer(That's hopeful). Who I don't recall ever meeting, God rest his soul.

I'm the child of two educators. So if genetics mean anything I stand a better chance at getting plants to know their multiplication facts than providing it what it needs for a good harvest.

But what does a plant need?

That's easy, soil, water, sun.

Case closed.

And while that is true, that is only the generic answer. The one I've always fallen back on.

But plants are no more generic than we are. The generic size of a woman's shoe is a 7, but not all women can fit comfortably in a 7. The height of a average modern American man is around 5'9”. But it doesn't mean that that all mens clothing are the same length.

How much water?

It varies from plant to plant.

A plant can't tell you when it's drowning.

How much sun? What would sizzle one plant isn't enough for another.

What kind of soil? And how much? Some plants sprawl, some plants grow up. And then some plants like alfalfa have root systems that go so deep they put miners to shame.

This requires some research on my part.

Which is difficult for me.

Not so much doing the actual research, That I'm fine with.

It's doing what it says. Taking orders from an inanimate object. 

Ooo I just can't stand being told what to do!

You see I sometimes can be a bit headstrong.

And depend a bit too much on luck.

Sometimes.

It took a while to learn to cook, because I disliked meekly following a piece of paper's dictations.

I knit and crochet mainly based on my own ideas, preferring to mess up and rip it out than to bow to the orders of a book.

I am getting better. Bit by bit.

This will be good exercise for me.

Next week I'll be including what I'm hoping to plant in my garden. And then I can start learning about the whims and needs of each one. So it can grow and produce.

Then I can eat.

I think it'd be a little easier bending my stubborn will to this. After all, a plant is living. Not inanimate. And the research I'll be doing is for it's benefit.

Wish me luck!