Sometime towards the late spring I forgot that I had a garden. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. Well, I’d like to think it’s true. What really happened was that we went on a little vacation, got busy with school and sports and therapies and work and life and before I knew it the garden was a mess. I’m embarrassed to post a picture of what the garden looks like now, but the only way to be accountable is to keep it real.
Not to get too philosophical but I think I know where I went wrong with my gardening efforts. I get stuck in an all-or-nothing mentality. Typical Type A personality disorder. Who am I kidding, I have this same issue with lots of areas in my life. I need to be reminded that baby steps are better than no steps, that something is better than nothing. I’ve gotten much more accepting that perfection isn’t always
This past weekend I cleaned up garden bed #1, which is the bed next to the fence. This was the first garden bed I had put in originally a couple years ago. Now I’ll admit, I had grand plans to dig it all out, weed thoroughly, lay down a cardboard barrier and fill in with a mixture of the existing dirt, manure/compost and potting soil. And about 15 minutes into that grand plan I embraced my new gardening and life philosophy – sometimes a good effort just has to be enough. And I’m not ashamed to say that I blame it all on my kids. You see, in an unusual turn of events the kids actually wanted to help me. I loved their enthusiasm but their “help” made the job that much harder.
I did manage to get most of the bed dug down, just not out. We got most of the weeds, and certainly the biggest clumps of weeds are gone. Most of the garden got a nice new cardboard barrier, but I realized that we hadn’t dug down as far as I wanted to so I only did cardboard on two-thirds. Some manure/compost and potting soil got mixed in, but I don’t know that the mixing was really all that great.
The before and after is pretty dramatic though. Overall I’m thrilled with what we got accomplished and I’m even more thrilled that we accomplished it together.
Earlier that morning I went to good old Home Depot to get some plants. I knew I was way too late in the fall planting season to try planting from seed so I picked up some plants that already had a pretty good head start. I had a general idea of what I wanted to get but really I went with what looked good. Here’s what we planted:
- Rutgers tomatoes (3). Not a variety I’ve ever planted but the tag said good for canning so I thought why not. Also, my husband is from New Jersey and always comments that my Fresh from the Backyard tomatoes are good, but they’re not Jersey good. Maybe this will hush him up.
- Early girl tomatoes (1)
- Red bell pepper (1)
- Cherry peppers (1)
- Cilantro (1)
- Tomatillo (1). This was a complete impulse purchase but I love them in my salsa so I thought this would be worth a try. Unfortunately I did a little quick research after I planted it and see that I’ve made a rookie mistake by only getting one plant. I’ll be heading back to HD to pick up another one this week.
- Flowers: marigolds (6), pentas (2), and Gerber daisy (1).
All in all I would say it was a productive morning and I’m excited about what I hope to harvest in the near future. The bad news, there are four more beds in complete disarray. The good news, however, is that I can wait until the heat breaks in a few weeks before tackling the rest of the clean up.
