Sowing and Growing
Until a couple years ago, I considered myself a plant killer. Having attempted to grow things many times over the course of my twenties, I had always been met with disappointment when I continually failed to help my plants thrive or even stay alive. So I stopped trying for quite a few years. Then came 2020 and the whole world stayed home. My family moved to a new home at the end of 2019 and this new space included ample land for gardening and even a few old raised beds from a previous tenant to get us started. We finally had the space and time to give gardening another try.
I was excited for this new opportunity, but admittedly wasn’t getting my hopes up about any success. But much to my surprise, this time it was different. I sowed and they grew. And they thrived!
The garden in 2020 turned out better than I could have imagined. We had months of fresh produce and flowers, happy bees and butterflies, and an outdoor space to spend our afternoons that was both peaceful and abundant with life. Tomatoes, peas, broccoli, peppers, salad greens, zinnias, sunflowers, potatoes…. and so much more.
It was a big undertaking but well worth the effort.
Then the 2021 season came and while there were some successes, we were fraught with trouble from slugs to moles to lack of sun and heat waves through the summer that stressed the already fragile plants. By the end of the summer season, I was ready to be done and was certain at that point that the space we had picked for beds simply wouldn’t work moving forward.
So down came the fence and the old, rotting wooden beds. I piled the soil on a tarp and prepared to move it to a new location in a much sunnier spot in the spring. And then we began.
Over the past month now we’ve been building up the new garden space and we finally got the fence up yesterday. A big victory that has taken much time and planning to get done, but we did it! This little space isn’t too fancy, but it will serve its purpose to help our family grow food hopefully well into the future. I couldn’t be more ready for the garden season to begin once again!
