The Garden's Always Greener

I've been feeling pretty proud of my garden lately. For example, I planted a mostly dead lettuce plant that I'd had at my house and the garden brought it right back to life!

Yum! And check out my adorable little beet plants!

My tomatoes are getting ready to start producing.

And I love the look of these baby eggplant plants!

All of this was thrilling to me, until I made a crucial mistake. I looked over at my neighbor's garden plot. Look at THIS!

Even the bees like their plants better.

I'll tell you, though, I think I've had my revenge. Stay tuned for a post about my tomato plant trying to strangle their strawberries.

New Additions to the Family

We have a sprout!

Is it a pea or a weed? Hard to say.

Yet possible pea sprouts aren't all we have! Here's a shot of our brand new tomato plants nestled into their new beds.

Don't they look happy to be out of their tiny, plastic pots? Here they are getting to know their strawberry bed fellows.

One big happy family!

Garden Progress

Even though I haven't been posting about our community garden plot, we have indeed been hard at work on it!

On our last visit, I grabbed a couple pictures of the scenery as we drove by.

As you can see, it's wet out there! Lots and lots of rain had just drenched our garden, but I still could not WAIT to get to planting.

Here are our beds before we tilled and planted.

They're pretty weed-ful, even though we'd done a good bit of weeding last time we were out there. Oh well. I guess that's gardening!

Tyler got right to work tilling the beds. He was perfectly dressed for the job.

Next, I planted strawberries,

broccoli, cauliflower, eggplants, cabbage

and a few different kinds of onions.

We're also planting several other veggies, but they'll have to wait for better weather, and for us to remember to bring the seeds (sorry, peas!).

After all of that work, we're really dirty, and really proud.

Gardening is for lovers.

Our Community Garden

As sad owners of exactly no yard, we were thrilled, THRILLED to score a plot in our local community garden.

Just look at those plots begging to be filled with delicious vegetables!

Besides being a space where we can try out gardening for the very first time, it is also a peaceful escape from everyday life. It even SMELLS calm and free out here!

These buildings have stood since the 1800's, and our community garden has regular work day events where everyone gets a hand in restoring and preserving our slice of land and its structures for the next generation.

To me, this place is opportunity. It's an opportunity to grow something all on

our own, to be a part of the cycles of life. It's the first steps toward self sufficiency, bits and pieces of our homestead. It's a beginning.

A Good Gardener

I wish I was a good gardener.

I love the idea of gardening, and I love the satisfaction of eating something I've helped nurture myself. I appreciate the chance to do something physical and earthy for a change, instead of only creating things that are abstract and intellectual. I feel more secure knowing I have a skill that can help my family thrive through tough times, and I especially love the ethos behind gardening - the slow foodness of it, the delayed gratification, the connection to where your food came from and the heart that went into bringing it to your table.

That said, I'm not such a good gardener. I've so far only managed to grow herbs, and any vegetable I've attempted has died a horrible death.

I've been feeling pretty bad about that. It's tough not living up to your own expectations. It's tough not being good at something you desperately want to master.

That's why I loved Gayla Trail's new post on her blog You Grow Girl about what makes a good gardener. Her relaxed approach to gardening and her encouraging advice makes me want to keep at my gardening. Currently I have no yard and a tiny apartment that gets almost no sun. Still, Gayla inspires me to do what I can with what I have, and that's what I will do. I will grow a container garden on the strip of grass behind out apartment building, and I won't beat myself up if I kill a plant or two. As Gayla pointed out, even the best gardeners do that. I will focus on enjoying the parts of gardening I love, and I will do so looking forward to the day when I have my own large yard to fill with plants and a more impressive skill set to coax delicate vegetables into producing.

I think it's good to hear Gayla's reminder to give yourself a little grace and let yourself enjoy the things you love, even for the non gardeners out there. As Gayla says, "the act of gardening serves as an excellent life lesson in accepting one’s failures that extends beyond the garden... Our gardens should be a free space where each of us can find joy, make discoveries, and feel whole. Guilt, shame, and feelings of insecurity have no place there."

I wish that for everyone. Have a peaceful night and graceful gardening.

Photo from Wendy Usually Wanders.