BY STEVE BATES

It’s been almost 14 years since I self-published my nonfiction book “The Seeds of Spring; Lessons from the Garden.” I’m still learning lessons among the rows and beds and insects and birds and human visitors. I hope the lessons never end. Because I feel like I need them more than ever. Life changes as you get older, but it doen’t necessarily get easier.

Fortunately, I don’t work for anyone else, other than editors who labor over my science fiction novels and short stories. I’m still a free agent. I can walk away from almost any bad situation. I’ve had to do that with a few volunteer activities as well as writing deals. But no matter what you do for a living and how you live your life, bad things will happen now and again.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in the years since “The Seeds of Spring” came out is that you have to step away from the screen. Several times a day, and for long stretches, if at all possible. It’s not just bad for your vision and your health. It’s bad for your soul.

That’s where the garden comes in. There is a lot of hard labor to be done, for sure. Pulling weeds and other activities that require bending over, and getting down on your knees, take a toll, especially among those of us who are not exactly kids any more. It’s good exercise, far better than the treadmill or exercise bike.

It’s the focus on living things that really makes the garden such a retreat from physical or virtual things that are inanimate and, ultimately, are given much too much value by society. Even swatting mosquitoes and pulling caterpillars from your plants connects you with nature. Of course, harvesting that sweet head of lettuce or that first tomato of July is extremely rewarding.

There is rarely a truly bad day in the garden. Even when I manage to mess up my back or start bleeding profusely from a run-in with something sharp, I come home with at least some feeling of satisfaction from having helped some plants reach their potential.

Some of my experiments have not succeeded. Trying to grow all the components of a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich has been one of my lifelong goals. The toughest part has always been extending the lettuce growing season (lettuce needs cool weather) to overlap the tomato season (tomatoes need hot weather). I haven’t gotten there yet, but maybe it will happen this year. As for the bacon, I have cut up pieces of bacon and planted them at various depths in a well-drained raised bed, but so far nothing has sprouted. Don’t even ask me about that failed experiment with bird seed.

The lesson that I have learned most recently is that “my” garden is not truly “mine.” Not just because the land I cultivate is owned by my friends John and Virginia. I feel that almost everything we create should be not owned by any one person or corporation. Yes, I copyrighted my published books. I would give them free to anyone who wants a copy, or to reproduce them. I created them to be shared. Those of you who, like me, are incurable storytellers, know what I mean.

I dig and weed the ground. I buy seeds and the occasional mature plant. I plant and thin and weed and weed some more, and I water until my arms are ready to fall off from dragging and pointing hoses. I nurture my plants. I still talk to them. Fortunately, if they are talking back, I have not yet learned how to interpret their complaints.

However, like children, plants must be allowed to live their own lives. They must be able to control their destinies—until I so cruelly cut them down to eat or to place in vases. Yet, even then, they are themselves. They belong to everyone, or to themselves only. My garden as a whole is often commented upon. Usually, the feedback is positive. But I’m only the steward.

The final lesson that I’m trying to learn from my garden is humility. Sometimes, humility happens because something bad or sub-optimal happens. The IRS comes to call, or a distracted driver totals your car. But at other times, humility happens because you did something decent, or good, or even great, and you don’t let it go to your head. Like winning an award for volunteering, when the act of helping someone is its own reward.

The only problem is, I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m human—I hope—and haven’t quite yet lost the desire for praise or at least acceptance.

Guess I better get back to the garden now and work on that humility thing.