Not a Gardener but Maybe a Gardener

I am not a gardener. For the last 8 years, we lived in a condo without a yard. For the year before that, we lived in a basement suite and the landlords used the entire back yard for an amazing garden (though they didn't live there). For the 4 years before that, we lived in a different basement suite and didn't think to ask if we could have a garden. Oh, I have tried growing things in containers. I spent a lot of money on containers and seeds and soil and every time everything would just die. I either watered too much or I'd forget and the soil would dry out. One year, my wonderful neighbour Margaret  (who passed away the following year) took it upon herself to make sure my plants were watered and they actually did okay that year. At least, the flowers did. But every other year, things slowly died and my black thumb showed. Mrblueberry laughed at me and shook his head every year as my excitement at the promise of spring took over and I bought planters and seeds, and how every year I would slowly kill everything.

I finally gave up.

And then we moved to a house with a wonderfully large yard.

The previous owners had an established garden that took up almost the entire back yard. It had obviously been planted lovingly, but hadn't been touched for months. Pregnant, I spent hours and hours pulling weeds and plants out. In and amongst the weeds, I found potatoes, rainbow chard, beans, squash, strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, many different herbs, and a bunch of different flowers. Knowing that I'm not a gardener (plus, I have 4 kids) we pulled it all up leaving the raspberries, rhubarb, and flowers and transplanting some strawberries and herbs (thank you to my mom and my brother's girlfriend for helping with that!).

And then over the winter I got lost in gardening ideas on Pinterest. I convinced mrblueberry to build me a small raised garden bed. I'm sure he was rolling his eyes, but he indulged me (that man knows how to keep his wife happy) and soon I had a beautiful 8 foot by 4 foot raised bed. I lovingly added compost, top soil, and peat moss and waited until it was time to plant. A helped me pick out some seeds. I joined a local gardening group on Facebook. I read everything and anything I could about gardening in Alberta. This spring was an early spring and everyone was suggesting planting earlier than the May long weekend I had always thought was the "planting weekend." So, I planted some of my seeds. Lettuce, peas, carrots in the garden (the boys helped with those so my carrots and lettuce and very close together!). Cucumbers and zucchini inside. Garlic in a pot with them the chives we had transplanted.

Slowly green started popping up. Would I actually be successful this time? I watched with excited eyes as the green grew into tiny pea and lettuce and carrot seedlings. The kids excitedly ran to the garden to show me as new things popped out of the ground. We planted more seeds. Spinach and rainbow chard. But all was not good. I transplanted my cucumber and zuchinni, but they didn't survive. I read too late to be gentle with the cucumber roots. My zuchinni slowly died and my last 2 plants that were thriving met their match when A was swinging a stick around the garden and broke them off.

But the rest is thriving. My rhubarb is huge. My strawberries have plenty of flowers. My raspberries are massive and sending out runners all over (side note: anyone want some raspberry shoot before I just pull them out?). My garden is growing!

I find myself longing to dig in the dirt. My fingernails constantly have dirt underneath and my feet are regularly black. Dirt has become my newest accessory. Gardening has become my therapy. It's incredibly soothing to lose yourself in gardening tasks, whether they be planting or weeding or pruning an overgrown shrub. I'll plan to be out for 5 minutes and suddenly it's turned into an hour. It calms me. I find myself inspecting houses on walks with the kids, taking mental pictures of what I want to do in my own yard. The dirt calls to me on days that I can't get to it because of kids or weather or life. I find myself planning my days around it. I dream of ways to expand my garden and grow all the things.

Maybe I am a gardener after all.