Our First Season’s Harvest

If I wasn’t standing here 5 minutes ago scrubbing dirt from beneath my fingernails, I’d say that there is no way this is me… it wasn’t supposed to be me and in fact I never had any desire to have a garden. There was a time, back in the ‘burbs’, when my dear husband had a very small {2’x6′} raised bed on our back porch. He planted a few tomato plants and expected me to keep them alive when he was away on business trips. Like clockwork, every time he would come home from a trip, he’d walk across the back porch, look at his wilting tomato plants, stick his finger in the soil to confirm that they hadn’t been watered and then enter the house and interrogate me as to what I didn’t understand about the instructions to water the plant. My response was the same every time, “Welcome home honey… sorry about the plant… I can either keep the kids alive while you are gone, or the plants alive… I chose the kids again”… and there you have it. Of course then I once thought that certainly I could keep a cactus alive so I took an old butter churner thingy and turned it in to a terrarium… it seemed like a good idea at the time and it looked like something fresh off of Pinterest… until it died… like DEAD and so there you have it… I couldn’t even keep a cactus alive and in fact I wrote a blog post about it. Bottom line was this: Whole Foods was 1 mile from my house so why on earth would I want to get dirt behind my nails?

{Public service announcement: when you get to the end of the pictures, I reveal the deep dark secrets and confessions of a first-time gardener}

So, what happened you ask? Through a series of difficult circumstances within our family, bit by bit, God made it crystal clear that it was time to let go of what was comfortable and step out in to the unknown. The unknown being a total change to our environment, home, community, church, and so much more… He called us to the country. And for any of you that have made that leap from suburban mini-van mamma to country girl, you know it’s a slippery slope no matter how much you resist the force! First it’s chickens in a bin under your kitchen table {before you even have a coop built} and then the desire to grow something creeps in and then more chickens and then suddenly you have goats or pigs or even more chickens {chicken math is complicated, people!}. My husband always wanted a big garden… he comes from a long lineage of green thumbs; however due to living in an HOA restricted neighborhoods for so long, it didn’t allow him to grow much of anything, nor could I keep any of it alive when he was out of town, so you see the problem was 2-fold {neighborhood restrictions & WIFE}!

But he kept persisting on a garden and I kept pushing back until I finally caved in to the “if you can’t beat ’em…. join ’em” mentality and when I commit to doing something… I adopt the “go big or go home” mentality. I started soaking up gardening books, YouTube videos, magazines, tapping in to other women and resources in our community, perusing seed catalogs, sketching out garden plans and pretty much obsessing over everything garden related! GAME ON!!!!!!!

I’ll save the details of how we actually got the garden built for a different post {although you can check out the greenhouse build here} because you’ll probably need a glass of wine… it was one challenge after another and I have roughly 2000 pictures of it to sort! Instead, let’s just cut through all that “stuff” and jump right in to what we actually grew successfully {that could mean 1 tomato or 100# of tomatoes…it’s all in how you look at it!}… drum roll please…

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Now, if you’ve scrolled this far you get to hear my confessions… the deep dark secrets and confessions of a first-time-gardener… here it is:

~I had NO idea what I was doing… zero, zilch, nada, none, never, no how…

~I didn’t know what an Army worm, or Horn Worm, or Squash beetle, or Cucumber beetle were {but now I know I don’t like them at all!!!}

~I didn’t know what Blossom Rot, Powdery Mildew or Copper Spots were {and I wish they didn’t exist}

~I didn’t know soil had a PH and that it needed to be within a certain range

~I had no idea that worm castings were as valuable as gold

~I had no idea how unbelievably EXHAUSTING it was {please go thank a farmer!} or that the challenges growing organically were SO hard!

~I didn’t know that you could hand-pollinate a plant…with a paintbrush!

~And, here’s the biggie: I didn’t know that flowers formed before the fruit… like everyone one of the little flowers on my tomato plants is where the fruit forms.

All this to say, that if I can figure this out, you can figure this out! There were many more “failures” or “challenges” than there were successes, but I learned so much through the sweat and tears. Next year may be different since I have some experience under my belt now, but that is not a guarantee. What grew great this year {cucumbers & cherry tomatoes for yeeeears} may not produce next year. My potatoes that were total mush {no exaggeration} may be a healthy bumper crop next year. What pest was completely invasive this year despite how hard we fought them, may not show their face here next year and new critters might come instead {please Lord, NO!}.

For sure I have learned that it does you NO GOOD to compare your garden or harvest to anyone’s else’s {comparison is the thief of joy!}… and what you can’t grow successfully or prefer not to even try, you can probably get through a friend, farmers market or local farm. What a blessing to be able to share in our gifts & bounty and not rely totally on the supermarket! And if this is truly just “not your thing”, at least for now, most grocery stores feature locally grown foods so that is a great place to start so that your tomato isn’t traveling 3000 miles to get to you!

So, get out there, get a bucket and get some dirt and stick a seed in it {and don’t forget to water it for goodness sake or my husband may yell at you!}

And don’t forget to check out the greenhouse!

The stories and pictures on my blog are my creation {unless otherwise noted}, please do not share, copy or reproduce in any way without permission from me and without proper credit linking back to my original. Thanks!