My garden, my love

I spent my life raised in a household where gardening was a way of life. When I was a little girl my Mom grew carrots and peas and green beans and strawberries. I remember pulling vegetables long before they were ripe and even though my Mom wanted to throttle us I think she loved that we were interested in the garden.

After I got married I toyed with gardening. I had a very nice container garden at our first condo. I grew flowers and little else but I loved it. I watered each plant by hand and trimmed and weeded daily. I was sad when we moved and my container garden was left behind.

In our second house, also a condo, we had a small bed outside our front window that was full of bushes and shade. It didn’t leave me much to work with but I spent hours out there every summer planting and watering and weeding. I loved my garden.

When we bought our townhouse I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I had SO MUCH MORE LAND to work with. (Bear in mind we only have like a quarter acre, but it beats the heck out of what I had in the past.) The first year was hard for me because we didn’t have time to do much since the summer was eaten up by simply clearing out the disaster the previous owner had created in the yard. We pulled down fences and overgrown bushes. We hauled dirt and leveled our land. We put in a drainage system so we didn’t end up with a mud bath every time it rained. My garden did not come to be.

The second year is when the magic happened. Brian and Grace bought wood and built me an 18 by 4 foot raised bed. We had two truckloads of soil delivered and we spent two days moving it wheelbarrow by wheel barrow. Every bead of sweat, every callous on my hands brought me closer to my dream… my own REAL garden.

I planted seeds and planned what I would grow and wear. I bought trellises and stakes and jute. I. WAS. READY. Once the danger of frost had past I was brimming with excitement. How in the heck did I turn into a person who was more excited about her garden than a new pair of beautiful shoes???

I am SO ready for Spring!!!