So, I made this the year of the veggie garden. I’ve never grown food before.  I mean, if you count some basil on the deck in a pot or the 7 cherry tomatoes that somehow showed up on the little plant from Home Depot despite my neglect, then I guess technically I grew food, but let’s be honest…it wasn’t much.

Normally I fill our deck with flowers, and then by the middle of June/early July I’ve forgotten to water them and they die. Last spring I started reading up on gardening in hopes that this year we’d be in a home with a yard where I could garden my little heart out. A new house wasn’t in the plan for us, so I had to make due. I found a community garden just 5 minutes from my house and paid for a plot. And at the end of this ridiculously long winter, I started reading up again.  Blogs, random Google searches, library books, seed catalogs…. I needed to know all about it like usual.

Let me first say, there isn’t much out there in terms of practical advice. And believe me, I’ve searched a TON.  I mean, I want to look up the plant and I want someone to tell me when to plant, how to plant, how to water and care for it, how to prune, and how/when to harvest.  You think it wouldn’t be too hard to find that information (with pictures please), but oh it is.

But guess what?  When I finally bought the seeds…the seed packets tell you most of that!  Hallelujah! Why didn’t something somewhere tell me to look at the seed packet?  I don’t know, but for you newbie gardeners – read the seed packet.  It’ll help.  Except for the pruning and knowing when to harvest – thankfully Google helps there usually.

Anywho…

I decided what to plant, made my plan and got to planting seeds and buying baby plants from the farmer’s market (because Lord knows I don’t have time or space or skill to start a tomato indoors on my own).

Then I became a worried little garden parent.

When we got hard rains I worried the seeds would wash away. Or that they’d have too much water.  I worry when it’s windy about my tall tomato plants and ever growing basil.  When it was super hot I worried my lettuce would wilt before it was time to harvest.  My plot was full of ants – FULL!  like crazy all the ground was teeming with them and I got too concerned.  They were just ants.  Not some freaky plant eating bug.  And by the next big rain they were gone.

And on top of all that – I have to worry about thieves!  Yes, thieves. Robbers.  Small children who like to pull things out and throw them.  This was the report from a cute kid on a bike one evening. The evening I found my one yellow pepper MIA as well as AN ENTIRE PEPPER PLANT!!! I now fear for my tomatoes on a regular basis. They’re starting to grown and are still green but I have no idea how long they take to ripen.  So I thank the Lord every time I go and they’re still there.

BUT  despite all the craziness I bring upon myself about all this.  It’s been a good little adventure.  And all adventures need some crazy, right?

We’ve been eating the HUGE amount of lettuce I grew (I’m so proud and it’s so pretty) and making pesto with our basil, and hopefully soon get to taste those yummy tomatoes and the carrots that take FOREVER to be ready.  The radishes were a bust despite everything I read saying they’re super easy to grow.

The deck plants were a bust too.  Again, help with the how to sow the seeds would be nice, I’m pretty sure I crammed too much into my window box AND the deck doesn’t get enough sun.  I’ve replaced those plants with flowers.  Hopefully I won’t neglect them this year.

The girls get to see how a garden grows which really was my main goal.  Well, Lana doesn’t really care about anything except digging.  She just wants to play in the dirt.  Mariah thinks it super cool.  She still wants to be a farmer when she grows up, so I’m preparing her I suppose.

For me, it’s teaching me patience and that I can’t control everything.  It’s hard to wait for the plants to grow and I can’t control the weather or the neighbors.  I would go almost every day in the beginning and keep wondering if they’d ever sprout.  Now I go once a week and love seeing the changes.  In my plot and the others around mine.  Not only do I need to wait for this year’s crops to grow, I have to wait a full year before I can learn from and fix my mistakes.  Man, that’s hard for me.

I’ll probably do it again next year.  I still wish I could have my garden close to make things easier, especially since I never see any of the other gardeners like I thought I would. But maybe the waiting and letting it grow on it’s own is best for me.