Today’s post is the perfect follow up to day 17 about buying groceries when you live in the country {found here}. Today is all about the beautiful art of gardening.
Allow me to show you what my lush garden looks like as of today:
Yes, I know, it is painful to look at. Especially when you consider that the woman who lived in our home before us, Kathryn, had a garden that managed to look like this:
Adding to the embarrassment of my garden is the fact that it is located along a highway. {A country highway, not an expressway city girls.} I seriously want to put up a neon sign that reads: “Kathryn no longer lives here and I am from the city. Please be forgiving.” Perhaps I could put it next to a sign that also reads: “This solar panel was here when we moved in. No we did not want it in the center of our front yard.”
Every spring I have these romanticized views of the lush beautiful garden that I will have. It will require no weeding. And the produce will magically come forth, sitting patiently for me to come and gather, not rotting if I leave it a day too long. Usually my garden timeline looks like this:
>> Spring is here! Finally we can break out of our house from the long Iowa winter. I shall frolic in the green grass with my perfectly behaved children while I plant beans, peas, squash, peppers and tomatoes.
>> Beginning of June. Oh so many weeds. Why did I do this? My children are running around helping me pull weeds, but really they are just ripping them or pulling up my baby bean plants.
>> July. If I can weed once a week I’ll stay on top of this. I just need to get up at 5 am so I don’t sweat like crazy.
>> August. Oh look. Only one bean plant survived the lack of proper watering and weeding. But it looks like I’ll have about 100 tomatoes again this year. And I don’t even like tomatoes.
>> September. Why did I do this to myself? Everything is ready now, but there is soccer, school and harvest is getting ready. I will not do this next year.
>> Long winter. It would be so wonderful to play outside in the dirt. Maybe I should do a garden again next year. I’m sure I’ll do better at finding time to work at pulling weeds and watering.
>> And repeat.
Crazy, huh?
All sarcasm aside though, I did enjoy “playing in the garden” more this past summer. I don’t know if we ever had any produce really to show for it. But I just let it go and did it for fun, and it was more enjoyable. So if you are going to attempt a garden for the first time let the thoughts of perfect gardens go. You may live in an area where there a lots of experts, and feel free to ask their opinion, but don’t compare your space to theirs. It is unique and it is yours.
Happy garden dreaming,