Webster’s would like us to believe and most would probably agree that gardening is “the act of cultivating or tending a garden”. That would be correct—but a guy would miss most of what gardening is by accepting this definition alone.

One could further distinguish gardening from, say, farming, by fundamental scale and intent. Gardening is done on a smaller scale, primarily for pleasure and to produce goods for the gardener’s own family or community. Where farming is done on a larger scale, is usually mechanized and done for (in a good year) profit. Somewhere in the middle you find the “market gardener” who straddles this imaginary fence or the landscape gardener who tends his garden for the pure pleasure of composing an ever-changing work of living art.

Gardening is pleasure. It’s fresh produce for your kitchen. It’s wonder at what a simple plant can draw from the earth. And—at the risk of sounding like a damn, dirty hippy—it is our bargain with nature, an orchestration of earth, air, water and sun.

This week we want to present the basics of urban gardening and discover how just about anyone can make their own bargain with nature to produce fresh vegetables—or just play in the dirt.

Randy (me) will be discussing some of the basic tenets of gardening science, while Joel and Susie will show you how to make the most of the sunlight you’ve been given, even in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with no yard.

If you have a tip or a story idea for Dethroner, please feel free to send a tip or drop us a line on AIM, or just add it in directly to this week’s schedule on the wiki. (Edit password “hairclumps”.) In addition to theme-related links, we also welcome regular submissions to Ask Dethroner and Dapper or Crapper?. Upcoming themes are available for your perusal and suggestion on our Planning Commission Wiki.