HOW DOES MY GARDEN GROW
THANKFUL FRIDAY
A couple of weekends ago, Michael and I fought our way around the slow crowd at one of our big lawn and garden super stores to buy some plants and mulch. Part of the original landscaping got messed up with the install of the new driveway. I wanted to fill in that space with some flowering ground cover that will hopefully come back every year. I also wanted to grab a few plants for my little kitchen garden that sits outside the back door. The kitchen garden is reserved for a tomato plant and some herbs. It’s minimal and easy to keep tidy. The front of the house has been a work in progress ever since I moved in fifteen years ago. I dug up all of my hostas last Fall, split them and then spread them out around the front. Everything I have planted in this area in the last three years has all been annuals. I’m not big on gardening, but I do want things to look nice. I think I can finally look at this area and not grimace.
The new driveway helps.
My hostas are coming in nicely. The tulips I replanted last Fall didn’t make it, but that late freeze ruined most of the tulips around town. That same weather muted our Spring. It seemed like all of the blooming trees skipped their blooms and went straight to green leaves. The usual rule around here is to not put things in the ground until after Mother’s Day, but sometimes it’s hard to wait, particularly when it just feels like Spring is going to stick around. I bought two strawberry plants, one tomato plant, some thyme, and stevia plant (Michael’s pick) and I was too impatient to put them in the ground. I planted them that very weekend even though I knew that we could still get another cold snap. I knew that if I brought those plants into the house, they would never see the light of day. They’d die on the kitchen table either from lost momentum or from that’s just what happens to my house plants. Last weekend, we received a possible freeze warning and I wasn’t home to cover any of my plants. I just had to hope for the best.
Thankfully, the temperatures did not dip as low as the weather oracles predicted. While I have no desire to dig up half the yard and install a vegetable patch, I do enjoy the small amount of gardening that I participate in. I get why people enjoy the hobby. I’m thrilled that my hostas are coming up as well as some native plant (I have no idea what it is) I purchased at a plant sale last year. Every evening, I have stepped out back to see how my kitchen garden is doing and every evening I have been surprised and pleased to see that all is well. The tomato plant is taller. The thyme is spreading out in that creeping way thyme spreads. There are blooms on the strawberry plants. Every thing looks full and robust. Seeing the daily growth of these plants is probably the only thing about gardening that makes me want to garden. Every time I notice that the tomato plant is a wee bit taller, I feel joyful. I’m sure that I will never get to eat a strawberry from the ones I’ve planted. Those will go to the birds and the squirrels. The tomato plant will probably do what every tomato plant has done for me and that’s to produce tomatoes that never turn red. By late Summer, early Fall, my south facing windows will be lined with green tomatoes. Maybe I’ll pickle them this year. Who knows.
Earth Day was this week. I feel like for most of my life, I have been advocating for Mother Earth. When we cleaned out our mother’s home for the last time, I came across a box of old t-shirts she had saved. They were all of my hand-painted Earth Day tees. I went through a phase of drawing orcas and they ended up painted on t-shirts with ‘Save the Earth!’ slogans. This was in 1991 or ‘92. Here I am, thirty five years later, still advocating for this planet but with less posters and marching. I am the recycle police in our house, making sure things that are recyclable end up in the correct bin. I try to purchase things in a more sustainable way. We are frequent visitors to the soap store. I try to ride my bicycle to work when the weather is nice. I know these are small actions but I also know that small actions grow to bigger actions.
I am grateful for my little thriving kitchen garden, but even if it’s trite to say it, I am grateful for this planet that currently allows for the growth of my little kitchen garden.