Gardening

My New Hobby

If you’d told me, oh, I don’t know, ten or more years ago that I’d really enjoy the dirty grunt work of gardening, I would have laughed. I probably would have gone on to explain that while I do like a garden, I was in no way ambitious enough to try to grow my own flowers, herbs, and/or vegetables.

Oh, sure, like most people, I’d grown a few tomato plants, some herbs in pots on the back porch railing, that sort of thing, but I’d never gone all in on a fer-real, in-ground garden. Some of that was because I lived in a row house for twenty years with a fully shaded back yard, and some of that was, as noted above, lack of ambition.

But then we moved into this house. And it came with a good-sized backyard. And I started to picture things in my minds eye… And then we bought the materials and put together an 4’ x 8’ raised bed. And the first year (two years ago) I planted cantaloupe and got 15 of the buggers off TWO vines (there’s still some in the garage freezer). I also planted delicata squash, but they got run off by the cantaloupe. But 15 cantaloupe! And, damn were they good!

Last year, I planted one cantaloupe vine and more delicata, along with lacinato kale, peas, and cilantro in the raised bed. Then I discovered a volunteer cantaloupe vine. So there I was with two cantaloupe vines once again. I got enough peas for a snack and again, fifteen freaking cantaloupe! But now I was determined. If cantaloupe did so well, certainly something else would do well. Right?

Nuthin’ but cantaloupe… so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered two kale plants growing merrily after I pulled all the cantaloupe vines. Then I saw a nice big cilantro plant right next to the kale! Whoa! What’s this? We were able to get very generous harvests of kale off those two plants for a couple of months. And enough cilantro I didn’t need to buy any at the store for a while.

Now I was totally hooked. This wasn’t just a couple of tomatoes, this was an entire side for two people for dinner! O.M.G.

But the best part was discovering the huge amount of dill and cilantro that had grown in alongside the patio! The seeds must have fallen out of the little starting table bed I have and fallen onto the lawn. Now I’m trying to convince my husband that I need to edge off the side and back of the patio for my herb garden. I think I’m wearing him down.

I just spent a couple of hours cleaning out the raised bed. Pulling weed, adding soil, all that. Planting will commence tomorrow. I also started pruning the roses we inherited with the house. Those things are amazing! They get up to about 5’ tall and cover the back windows.

With all of this, I’ve come to realize that gardening is, as I figured, a lot of work. But I’ve also come to realize that I really do enjoy it. I’m not nearly as talented at it as some of my friends, but I have a vision of the backyard and I’m slowly working my way toward it. I know some of the stuff I’ve done will be changed or rearranged as time goes by, but that’s a big part of the fun.

So with that, I’m off to get cleaned up and then we’re going to grab a beer. Because I think we’ve earned it!