What's right about being normal?

Melissa Jeter aka HUF

An important element of Hip Urban farming addresses the issues of recycling, self-sufficiency, and gratitude. Hip urban farming is a creatively maladjusted way or abnormal way of living. But normal in our society is overrated in my opinion anyway.

What’s normal in our society is to go out and buy a bunch of stuff for cheap.  After reading the book by the same name written by Ruppel Ellen, my conclusion is that we are a bunch of duped saps for yielding to brand names over quality merchandise as well as believing that the price tag is an objective reality. Conventionally, people growing things in their garden will go to a big box store for the low prices and buy pots, dirt, weed killer, fertilizer and even more.  I must say in all honesty that I too act in these conventional ways. But I fight it too.

Here’s how I fight convention:

1. Recycled pop bottles as planters;

2. Accept gifts of pots from friends who no longer need them;

3.Use pop bottles to water and feed the veggie plants

4. Compost for fertilizer

5. Use vinegar in the cracks of the cement sidewalks to get rid of weeds

6. read, read, read more books about how to use elbow grease instead of cash to get rid of pests and weeds  

Eat more dirt is a good one!

7. Make stuff: reuse re-purpose recycle

8. Use creative skills or learn a new skill

7. Brain storm all the different ways you can make a plastic bag into something useful- like knitting strips from paper bags together to reduce them to a bag

8. So much more. . .

So why fight convention? Why not just accept the choices that are available and be the same as everybody and everything else?  

Because it’s not HIP! That’s why!

To me to be hip is to step to the beat of your own drum and my drum beats to the rhythm of recycling, reusing, re-purposing, mending, and spending in ways that are of value to me.

Who has time to do that? Ah HUF, now you’re just making up stuff to do?


I disagree. The fact of the matter is that people always find time to do what is important to them. I do what I value. I find that sometimes, people really lack an understanding of what is important to them. To get understanding of your values requires introspection and quieting the mind to really get to know yourself. In a world, where a person is constantly moving, the focus is on everything and everyone outside yourself. Consequently we know more about the latest movie star than we know about ourselves.  People are more likely to think about their happiness in comparison to the life of some movie star than look at what is important to each unique individual self.

news flash***** Life is not a competition!!!!*******news flash

I choose to know more about me and what gives my life meaning. It is important to me, because this is my life and honestly, that I am aware I have this life and that’s it.

Besides this reason, there are also more characteristics that apply. One characteristic is that  great feeling I get from being competent. There is a great feeling that I get when I have created something from what seems to be nothing. And there are a host of other people who feel the same as exemplified through the DIY movement and young people who knit and sew. Go to websites such as  instructables, craftster, or raverly.

Even more to the point, aren’t you reading this blog?

Autonomy is another characteristic that applies. If I can create something based upon what I think is important, then I feel less dependent and helpless in the face of conventional standards.  For example with tomatoes I grow from my garden, I can make tomato sauce, ketchup, or just stewed tomatoes. What’s hip about making these tomato-based products is that I can make them to taste how I want them to taste. As my grandmother used to tell me in the kitchen, make it the way you like to taste it.

And  I like my ketchup sour and spicy. . . I’m still working on the flavor for tomato sauce, though.

So perhaps, these characteristics sound valid to you, but still you challenge...

Well HUF, not everyone has a house with a yard.
And I would answer Good point! This brings me to the next characteristic..  

Means.  You don’t have to have a house with your own yard.  Participate in a community garden, learn window farming, join a CSA.  For years, I lived in an apartment, dreaming about gardening. I had several plants in the windows and a growing basil plant.  I even did a little composting under the sink in my kitchen, too.

Well, I dried out food scraps and put them in a  pot of dirt under to sink. and watered it so it could decompose. . no it didn’t smell. . . well only like burnt food. . . no, there were no bugs  Geesh! It wasn’t a vermicomposter.


Motive is another characteristic. People are all motivated in different ways.  I am usually intrinsically motivated.
That means that the carrot or stick approach usually causes me to be suspicious or resentful of the person trying to “motivate” me.

I’m a self-starter, an amateur, and I am willing to learn more about gardening, share information and collaborate with more people  in order to have a better garden. I garden, because it connects me to the outdoors and also family lore. I’m a bit idealistic and I dream of being able to supplement my store bought food with the veggies grown from my garden. If I ever have enough of anything, then I can share it.  In the community garden in which I participate, anything grown that the gardeners don’t use goes to feed local residents, through shelters and foodbanks. I don’t get paid money to do this and neither do my fellow community gardeners.

Is it so odd to see people who are intrinsically motivated?

Lastly, opportunity is a characteristic. With gardening, I get the opportunity to share my harvest as well as my thoughts and feelings.  I have a serious hobby to talk about with people who are similarly interested or curious about it.Working with other gardeners, I have the opportunity to learn and work together to learn to be better gardeners. And then we share the fruits of our labor with people who need and want food. It is a collaboration of gardening that helps to make our community better. If there is competition amongst us, it is a competition to be better individually growing food, so that we can as a group better provide food for ourselves and others.


So, hip urban farming is a creatively maladjusted way of living; it's abnormal.  But what's so right about being normal? For me, making a life that includes elements of recycling, self-sufficiency, and gratitude. . . well you know that's hip!

Hip urban farming! Hip!


Sources of Inspiration:

Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin, 2010.

Shell, Ellen Ruppel. Cheap: the High Cost of Discount Culture. New York: Penguin, 2009..

Beckwith, Michael Bernard. Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul's Potential. New York: Atria /Beyond Words, 2008.

Belanger, Jerome D. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Self-sufficient Living. New York, NY: Alpha, 2009. Print.

Bridgewater, Alan, and Gill Bridgewater. The Self-sufficiency Handbook: a Complete Guide to Greener Living. New York, NY: Skyhorse Pub., 2007. Print