After the annual stress of filing tax returns a few weeks ago, the luckier among us are now receiving free money…er…refund checks just as plants go on sale at the garden centers. I'm certainly not the only Chicagoan who will be cashing my IRS check and then buying tomato plants, all in the same errand. In fact, tax time and planting tomatoes often converge in my muddled mind, becoming a single event, as if Uncle Sam offered a subsidy in support of Italian cooking. 



In any case, it's high time for gardeners to consider asking our lawmakers for the real thing; that is, for a tax deduction for gardening.

Professional gardeners already deduct gardening items on their tax returns as legitimate business expenses. I know at least one garden writer who does the same. What I'm proposing is different: a tax credit for gardening, not as a business but as a community service in hungry, warming world. 

I'm thinking especially of edibles here. There's an obesity crisis on, and we're constantly being told to eat more fruits and vegetables. Then there's the climate crisis and all the talk about the importance of eating local and cutting "food miles." Too, there are "food deserts," vast stretches of our city where it's difficult if not impossible to buy fresh produce. 

So if you go to the expense of digging up a swath of lawn, putting seeds in, watering them through the summer, all to feed your family or neighbors, why shouldn't you be entitled to deduct those costs? It's work—hopefully pleasant work—but work nonetheless, sweat invested in the betterment of the community, the nation, the planet.

Maybe the credit shouldn't be confined to edibles. If you plant an empty lawn with good trees that will store carbon for next century, maybe you should also get the tax credit, too. Ditto for someone who switches from chemical fertilizers to organic lawn treatments. Aren't these as credit-worthy in their own way as buying a hybrid vehicle or installing better insulation? Both of the latter tasks, I might add, are already deductible.

There would of course be some tricky parts to quantifying "gardening improvements" in dollar terms. Does planting a heritage tree get a bigger deduction than an ornamental shrub? Do heirloom tomatoes rate a bigger refund than a flat of cheap pansies? I would think so, but obviously some ambiguities would have to be worked out. Nor do I think that all gardening expenses should qualify. Buying a gardening shed or a potting table or cute pavers doesn't help fight global warming or hunger or obesity. 

But many kinds of gardening do. And it's about time we got credit—literally.

—Christopher Weber