Gardening passion

Fresh organic veggies

If you’re a gardener, you know how much planning, expense and fretting are invested in your venture. Whether it’s a hobby or a business, creating a successful garden that yields results is hard work. You fuss over which plants go where, which plants grow well together and which ones don’t, when and how to sow seeds, how to protect your plants from the elements, pests and predators. The list goes on and on.

Fresh picked spinach.

I dream about gardening all year long. When the first snow falls, I start planning my garden, flipping through dozens of magazines for layout and watering ideas, making a list of seeds and seedlings to order, researching growing methods and plant types. There’s so much to learn; it’s endless. I love it.

When torrential rain and hail pour down or a freak snow storm blankets the garden, I want to run outside with a gigantic tarp and protect my “babies”. If it doesn’t rain for a couple of days, I give everyone a deep, thorough watering and layer mulch around their tender stems to protect the roots from exposure. Weeding is a necessary, but arduous task that somebody has to do, despite the mosquitoes and black flies.

Garden broccoli.

When a pest threatens my “kids”, I spring into protective mode. Cutworms – I will find and destroy you. Potato beetles - beware of the underside of my rubber boots! Raccoons – you’d better relocate.

Why go through all of this? After months of planning, back breaking digging and hoeing, a seedling pops up from the earth; it’s magical. The once bare earth is slowly covered in delicate seedlings struggling to survive. Only the strongest will remain. There’s something satisfying about gardening, to be able to say, “I grew this.” Sure, there are some failures, but the successes drive us to keep doing it year after year. It would be great to live in a climate where we could grow our own food year ‘round, but for now, I’ve got enough to keep me busy, a wonderful harvest so far this year and still a bit of time to enjoy a sunset.