Late winter, I proclaim a bit vehemently to my farmer husband man, that “I am not going to have a garden this year.”
It takes time and work and thought and watering and wheat harvest is busy enough without added extras and I think it’s something I will CROSS OFF for this year.
Winter begins to lose its grip and Spring begins to tease and flirt and peek in and out, sending delicious breezes through our open windows. The dirt in the garden lies silent and still. Or so it seems. In soft, soft whispers it begins to call and remind and chatter about tassled sweet corn and the salsa jars in the pantry basement that are quickly emptying and flat pumpkins for fall; and then it even has the nerve to whisper in my husband’s ear about potatoes, with beautiful red skins against the dark dirt.
And before I know it, we’ve picked up seed potatoes at the local TSC and my fingers have tapped out an online order for sweet corn seed and here I am at the greenhouse waiting in line to purchase tomato plants and before I know what has happened, a garden has quite sprung up. And then I can’t quit when it looks like it’s halfway struggling along, but there’s still a voice in my head saying, “How did this happen?!!! I really meant to have one less thing to think about this summer!!” 🙂
Now, I’m an IDEA gardener. Not an IDEAL gardener, but an IDEA one. Don’t confuse them. There IS a difference! 😉 {Also, not to be confused with IKEA.}
Translation: I love the IDEA of a garden, but I lack a green thumb and other requirement to earn the label of GARDENER SUPREME.
Perhaps what I lack in skill, I make up for in enthusiasm.
I absolutely love watching the baby plants emerge and I absolutely love finding the produce, if the plants have the audacity to withstand my poor skills and begin to bear vegetables.
I am as equally unenthusiastic about the weeds. Weeds are so annoying and noxious and they thrive without even trying.
And then there’s this huge part of me growing my IDEA garden, I think, simply for the beauty of the veggies. They make almost as neat of a bouquet in a bowl as a flower bouquet does in a vase. I look at the simple assortment in my wire basket and I begrudgingly admit that perhaps I’ll forgive that tricky garden for bewitching us this spring.
If you have a garden, what are you harvesting? I’d love to hear!
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Jenni Koval says
No garden for us. I feel guilty about it because we just don’t have tons of money for groceries and all those scriptures about the ant & grasshopper. But I loathe it and I end up being the only one who does the work and I have a brown thumb. I distinctly remember the last time we had a garden, me picking tomatoes that only my husband would eat and repeating to myself “I garden because my children need to eat, I garden because my children need to eat…”
deborah says
NO GUILT.
Enjoy your extra moments because you don’t need to water and weed and care for garden produce!!! 🙂