With Earth Day upon us and Spring in the air, it’s time to plant this year’s garden. Gardening gained many new adherents last year as a COVID-appropriate activity. But gardening rookies and regulars alike are often unaware of the key nutrients gardens deliver, and therefore fail to take them into account when planning their annual planting. Here are some for your review. Happy Earth Day, and happy gardening!
VITAMIN S
Bountiful bowls of crisp, leafy salad greens deliver key nutrients, among them Vitamin C, vitamin K, and beta carotene. But they also help the body to produce its own, often-overlooked, Vitamin S, commonly referred to as Sanctimony.
Societal levels of Vitamin S have historically been stable and modest, but in the past four years a virtual explosion of Vitamin S has been observed throughout the general population. Outbreaks were first noted in the first week of November, 2016, in places such as San Francisco, Boston, Brooklyn, Portland, and other progressive urban centers, leading nutritionists to wonder whether Vitamin S could be obtained in such foods as brie, sea bass, kale, quinoa, kombucha, and soy-based meat substitutes. But in recent years, Vitamin S levels in the general public have burgeoned far beyond those initial readings.
Unfortunately, nutritionists warn that, like cholesterol, Vitamin S can come in both “good” and “bad” forms. “Good” Vitamin S comes from the satisfaction derived from activities with ethical or other normative worth -- gardening ranks high among these sources. And while these activities are often characterized as “their own reward,” some accretion of Vitamin S is inevitable when participating not just in gardening, but also such activities as feeding the hungry, providing water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending to the sick, and visiting the imprisoned, an observation first made by a Roman-era practitioner named Matthew (although Eastern practitioners in the Buddhist tradition often stand-by the “own reward” diagnosis and see Vitamin S accrual as a serious problem). Moreover, a surge in “bad” Vitamin S has recently occurred alongside rising levels of social media use and the ensuing higher levels of disinformation, and preliminary evidence suggests “bad” Vitamin S levels can be found, alongside with the COVID virus, in non-mask-wearers around the country.
“Vitamin S is a little like chocolate -- both are guilty pleasures in moderation, but both become destructive as a way of life,” said Abner Lint, a USDA nutritionist. To demonstrate his point, Lint points to the Vitamin S superspreader event at the U.S. Capitol this January, where many rioters appeared to have overdosed on Vitamin S and as a result lapsed into borderline-psychotic episodes. The result has been a subsequent calamitous rise of “bad” Vitamin S in the general population. “If the ‘good’ Vitamin S obtained from activities such as gardening supplanted the ‘bad’ Vitamin S found on social media,” nutritionist Lint notes, “we’d all be a lot healthier.”
VITAMIN P
Vitamin P, widely available as Patience, is an essential nutrient that can be obtained from the home garden. Gardeners who see the fuzzy nubs of cucumbers emerging from their yellow blossoms or the green underbellies of unripe tomatoes on the vine obtain hard-to-synthesize Vitamin P in ample quantities as these vegetables ripen in the garden, although recipes such as fried green tomatoes or sauteed baby carrots, which incorporate garden produce before it is fully ripe, convey no Vitamin P benefit whatsoever to those who consume them. Conversely, there are isolated instances of Vitamin P overdose in the garden. Lettuces, spinaches, herbs, and other crops that will “go to seed” in situations in which there is too much Vitamin P, and too little Vitamin W (see below), applied. A good example is okra, which must be harvested while new, lest it grow to lengths at which its only productive use is as barbed wire for penal systems in totalitarian societies.
Vitamin P is widely unappreciated in popular health discussions, but its benefits make it an essential component of any diet. “We know that people with higher levels of Vitamin P have lower blood pressure, enjoy sexual activity more pronouncedly, have greater longevity, and clearer skin,” said one garden nutritionist. “It’s not surprising Vitamin P is universally recognized as a virtue.”
Scientists, however, note an unanticipated incongruity in the distribution of Vitamin P among the general population. Despite their shorter remaining life expectancies, the elderly as a group demonstrate higher levels of Vitamin P than do the young, who should have far longer time horizons. “Youth may be served,” says physiologist Howie Doux, “but youth appears to demand to be served right now.” Scientists now believe aging improves the body’s ability to produce and store Vitamin P. Some gardening enthusiasts, therefore, encourage sharing the pursuit with children early in life, in order to avoid Vitamin P deficiencies that often plague the teenage and young adult years.
VITAMIN W
Vitamin W, commonly known by its street name, Work, is closely associated with gardening and garden-grown produce. A row of productive, disease-free, mulched, pruned, and staked tomato plants are a clear indication large amounts of Vitamin W have been absorbed by the gardener.
Nutritionists note that Vitamin W is prevalent throughout the population – like Vitamin D conveyed by sunshine, most people must all but consciously avoid it in order to fail to get an adequate dose. But the age distribution of Vitamin W levels is often skewed. Young people often avoid Vitamin W-creating opportunities, preferring indoor activities, such as gaming or collecting NFTs, which lead to chronic Vitamin W deficiency, and muscular atrophy and ossification of key neurons needed in later life. Scientists point to previous cohorts of young people who obtained both Vitamin D and Vitamin W through Little league Baseball, lawn mowing, dog walking, such employments as warehouse-sweeping, snow shoveling, stockroom and shelf cleaning, and delivering kosher meat on bicycles, or, less frequently, running away from home. These activities are less prevalent in today’s population of young people, and many of their preferred pastimes such as Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto CCLXIV, and Super Mario Brothers are often thought to convey “false” Vitamin W that delivers none of its long-term benefits, so-called “empty ergs.”
Conversely, the elderly appear to have a declining tolerance for Vitamin W. Large doses of it among seniors sometimes produce symptoms such as backache, dizziness, corns and callouses, and whining. Others among the elderly appear to be Vitamin W-dependent, unable to stop building their Vitamin W levels even after a lifetime of accumulation. On the other hand, most of the elderly have built up adequate reserves of Vitamin W through their lifetimes and are perfectly pleased to stop their exposure to it.
Finally, economists note that some people are never exposed to Vitamin W in any form. These people are sometimes referred to as “coupon clippers,” “passive investors,” “rentiers,” and “the idle rich.” Nutritionists point to the absence of Vitamin W among these groups as the source of their skewed social outlook and their fundamental dissociation from reality, including such beliefs that the poor are lazy, regulation is kneecapping society, and All Lives Matter. Such well-known personalities as Betsy DuVos and Wilbur Ross are thought to have be stricken with these maladies – it is believed to have killed Sheldon Adelson. “If you know someone like that,” says physician Carol Salt, “the best thing you can do for them is to give them a hoe and a shovel and point them to some dirt. They might complain, but you’d be saving a life.”
VITAMIN M
Many would-be gardeners confuse the relationship between gardening vegetables and the provision of Vitamin M, money. Besotted would-be gardeners walk the produce aisles at their supermarkets in February and see waxy, gas-ripened tomatoes and scrawny summer squashes selling for three or four dollars a pound, and dream of growing bell peppers come July bigger than their fists and eggplants the size of rabbits. They proceed to plant in anticipation of large doses of Vitamin M, but when it is time to harvest, they see fruits and vegetables at their local farmers markets that put their own to shame at prices that do not justify their efforts.
That is not to say gardening provides no Vitamin M to the gardener. Under the right conditions – for example, wartime “victory” gardens or the plots managed by private citizens in Soviet-style command-and-control economies – gardens can produce Vitamin M in copious amounts. But for the average gardener, significant amounts of Vitamin M must be expended before any return is realized. In this regard, Vitamin M and Vitamin W have a complex interaction. Moreover, many aspects of the annual gardening cycle require significant expenditures of Vitamin M, from tools and implements to seed and fertilizer to liniment and braces for backs, knees, wrists, and hands. The average person is more likely to realize higher Vitamin M levels on the job than in the garden.
VITAMIN H
The most fundamental, but also most controversial and often elusive, nutrient obtained from the garden is Vitamin H, Happiness. Its fundamental character is widely understood, but long-standing problems plague identifying how the body obtains and processes it. One view is gardeners find satisfaction and fulfillment when tending a successful garden, over and above their accretion of Vitamins S, P, and W. (The relationship between Vitamins H and M, on the other hand, is even more contentious, although most agree that Vitamin M cannot secure Vitamin H, but at the same time, it doesn’t hurt.)
A contrasting view is that the body’s levels of Vitamin H are entirely endogenous, that with the proper training and perspective, the body can produce its own, perhaps unlimited, endowments of Vitamin H, a condition known to practitioners as “mellow.” In fact, one school of thought maintains that people with a predisposition to higher levels of Vitamin H are more prone to choose to garden, and the correlation between the two reflects selection bias in the data. Perhaps the best test is for the individual to note their Vitamin H before and after a few hours of planting, weeding, composting, and other activities that lead to the foremost clinical symptom of Vitamin H obtained from the garden - dirty hands.
