Distraction #3, Gardening and Canning: How I've kept from getting too depressed during the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Cassie at the greenhouse door

I should have noted in the past two posts that these techniques to avoid depression during a more-than-usually contentious presidential campaign are ones that work for me; other people will have their own ways of coping. What I'm promoting here is the need to step away from the 24-hour news cycle, whether one accesses it on the Internet or cable television, to maintain one's equilibrium during these divisive times. I am also referring to depression as a general feeling of powerlessness and sadness in response to the focus on hatefulness in the news. Do we really need another conspiracy theory to rile up a mob of voters? Can we stand another video of so-called patriots screaming "Lock her up," suggesting that it's a good idea to prosecute one's political opponents? 

Those of us committed to facts, logic, and spirited but thoughtful and respectful debate have been bombarded with headlines throughout this campaign season that suggest our commitment is a delusion. Sometimes I think that if I hear or read one more "opinion" with no supporting evidence, I'll scream. But then I head to the garden to gather produce or just to look at the plants still surviving here in late fall. Fortunately, the presidential campaign will be over by winter and the first snow.

I find solace in a garden. Part of that comes from the heavy work early in the season; nothing quite pulls one's focus away from a spiral of worries than good, physical labor. Then there is the magic of germination; I never fail to be surprised every year as those hard, tiny seeds I planted break apart and push that first bit of green above the soil. Plucking the spring greens or gathering the first tomato is occasion for celebration. Who can be sad in a garden?

Our first full summer of gardening in Arizona brought us more bounty than we expected. Since Tom re-purposed an old chicken house into a greenhouse in which we planted tomatoes and peppers, our tomatoes there were turning ripe long before those in the larger, open garden. And we still have tomatoes blooming and producing here in mid-October, Sungolds in the outside garden, Celebrities, Sungolds, and even Black Krim in the greenhouse.

I have described in earlier posts some of our Arizona gardening experiences--here, here, here, and here--so there is no need to reprise those. We ate well from our garden this year, and then we began canning our produce for later consumption, learning as we went. 

preparing to make and can apple chutney

Tom started first on the tomatoes; he canned a total of about 53 pints. Then we began canning the apples from our apple trees; we had so many that we shared boxes of apples with neighbors. I first tried an apple chutney recipe. Tom began with apple sauce and then apple jam, discovering after the first batch of jam that we should pulse the apple pieces in a food processor for a prettier jam. With apple slices, apple jam, apple chutney, apple sauce, Red Hot apple jelly, and apple-serrano-pepper jelly, we have enough canned apple products to share over and over again.

canned apple slices

apple jam

draining apple juice for jelly

apple-serrano pepper jelly

When the first snows manage to get above the mountains and  settle into the dryer Round Valley, we will still be eating tomatoes from our garden, in soups and salsas; spreading jam and jelly from our apples on our morning toast; making apple pie from apple slices we canned; topping our ice cream with apple sauce and adding the sauce to recipes for muffins and pancakes. When the 44th President of the United States moves out of the White House and the 45th is sworn in, we will be enjoying the sweetness of our summer garden--and forgetting, I hope, the bitterness of that same summer's presidential campaign.

our summer canning

October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or shutting a book, did not end the tale. Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: 'It is simply a matter,' he explained to April, 'of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content.'

--Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol, 4: Season of Mists