A funny story about me: When I was in middle school, 7th or 8th grade, I decided one day to plant a garden. When I came home from school, I went to the garage and got a shovel and a hoe and got to work. When my great grandmother came home from work (I mostly lived with her by then) I showed her the big area of her backyard I dug up. I said, "I'm planting a garden. I need seeds." Being the awesome grandma she was and loving me as she did, she did not yell or get mad (as far as I knew) and after dinner we went to Home Depot and got seeds. I am not sure why, but everything we planted did well and flourished.
I am not sure (I cannot recall) why I only did the garden one year. But I remember it well. The beans and the lettuce and the carrots. I was convinced I was a gardener and blessed with a green thumb. Years later I got my first home and wanted to plant a garden, but it was not a good sized yard (quite pathetic, actually). I held off on starting another master garden. When we lost that house and began renting the house we are still in, I decided to grow a garden.
With confidence lingering from my one and only garden roughly 20 years in my past, I set out to grow enough food to save us a ton on groceries. I read up on methods and all the how-to's. The soil in this yard was terrible and I got no where after an hour's hard effort to break the soil up. I went with a raised bed method. Over a $100 later, I had two kiddie pools with sand on the bottom, drain holes, expensive soil and seed packets with potential to feed a small nation. It was a disaster. I failed miserably. My green thumb ego took a huge blow. Only the gazillion bugs who found my garden, ever got a taste of my labor. Angry and feeling stupid (I really talked up my gardening skills to my skeptical husband) only to waste the little money we did have after losing our home.
I decided recently to try again. This time I am humble (even prayed before putting a single plant or seed in the ground). And as I have been working this new garden, and sharing my funny impulse garden from my youth, I have begun to think a lot about how that garden grew so well.
Was it superior soil? -Maybe I had pH balance off in my last attempt, but when I was a kid, all I used what was in the ground there.
Was it a better climate? -Maybe, though the weather here and there are not that different.
Was it superior seeds? -I think I can say, "no." ;-)
One thought that keeps swirling around is that I bet my grandma did a whole lot more than I even knew about. All the time I thought it was ME, it was probably her. It has me thinking a lot about myself as a parent and about myself as the child (and God as my Father). How much do my kids think they are "all that and a slice of pie!" and how much do I? How does your garden grow?
Click here to see an update post on my garden!
I am not sure (I cannot recall) why I only did the garden one year. But I remember it well. The beans and the lettuce and the carrots. I was convinced I was a gardener and blessed with a green thumb. Years later I got my first home and wanted to plant a garden, but it was not a good sized yard (quite pathetic, actually). I held off on starting another master garden. When we lost that house and began renting the house we are still in, I decided to grow a garden.
With confidence lingering from my one and only garden roughly 20 years in my past, I set out to grow enough food to save us a ton on groceries. I read up on methods and all the how-to's. The soil in this yard was terrible and I got no where after an hour's hard effort to break the soil up. I went with a raised bed method. Over a $100 later, I had two kiddie pools with sand on the bottom, drain holes, expensive soil and seed packets with potential to feed a small nation. It was a disaster. I failed miserably. My green thumb ego took a huge blow. Only the gazillion bugs who found my garden, ever got a taste of my labor. Angry and feeling stupid (I really talked up my gardening skills to my skeptical husband) only to waste the little money we did have after losing our home.
I decided recently to try again. This time I am humble (even prayed before putting a single plant or seed in the ground). And as I have been working this new garden, and sharing my funny impulse garden from my youth, I have begun to think a lot about how that garden grew so well.
Was it superior soil? -Maybe I had pH balance off in my last attempt, but when I was a kid, all I used what was in the ground there.
Was it a better climate? -Maybe, though the weather here and there are not that different.
Was it superior seeds? -I think I can say, "no." ;-)
One thought that keeps swirling around is that I bet my grandma did a whole lot more than I even knew about. All the time I thought it was ME, it was probably her. It has me thinking a lot about myself as a parent and about myself as the child (and God as my Father). How much do my kids think they are "all that and a slice of pie!" and how much do I? How does your garden grow?
Click here to see an update post on my garden!
No comments:
Post a Comment