Covid 19 is the topic of the hour, but journalists have covered it so well, what’s left to say? However, down here in my basement office, there’s much to say about lettuce plants, Poland Springs bottled water and polar bears. 

My wife caught me in the office alone carrying on a monologue. She asked, “Who on earth are you talking to during this time of social separation?”

“Oh, I was just talking to my lettuce” I replied wondering if she might believe me. Of course, she had no reason to doubt.

HOW COULD THIS START?

It all began back at Christmas time when my sisters chipped in and presented me with a small, self-contained hydroponic garden with attached LED lighting. The kit included half a dozen lettuce seed packs. By turning on daily 17 hours of LED sunlight we have now enjoyed the bounty of three harvests in the past two months and are healthier for it. I’m not talking about a meager one or two leaves of grass clippings. Nay, nay nay, our lettuce jungle produced three overflowing salad bowls full of garden-fresh greens arriving in the depth of winter. 

How could I not speak a kind word or two of encouragement to those jolly green sprouts that brought vitamins and nourishment to our household? It was the bare minimum I could do for them.

TALK TO THE BEFORE YOU EAT THEM

I yearn to do even more! Directions on the box recommend merely adding tap water plus a thimble full of plant food twice a week. The plants will suck CO2 out of the air, grow and flourish. That’s a wealth of output for a scant thimble of input. Of course, I am talking encouragement to the bushy leaves before I eat them. But to just give them tap water? That’s so declasse, akin to dishwater or bathroom water. Befitting the high esteem in which I hold these plants, I’m now considering offering bottles of designer water, like Poland Springs or Evian. It is the least I can do for the vitamins and entertainment they give to me.

Entertainment: What entertainment you might ask? Imagine a winter night when I come down to the dark, dank basement, the freezing wind outside is howling, the trees are bare and gloom abounds. But my office is dazzling with the light of the sun. I’m greeted by spring-like rain forest of green flora that has grown noticeably since yesterday. THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT! 

HAVE YOU NO FEELINGS FOR THE POLAR BEARS?

If that’s insufficient reason for you to go hydroponic, the the plants will reduced your carbon footprint, cut down on all that carbon dioxide gas,and replaced it with oxygen. You will have helped with global climate change. No cuddly kitty or pet pooch gives you food, lifts your spirits and entertains you all while cutting down greenhouse gasses and polar ice-melting. Dump kitty, go green. Save a polar bear.