Let your garden grow

Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time or resources to do what you want.  Life happens and postpones things.  You just can’t make up your mind.  Mistakes can be made even by experienced gardeners that cause setbacks as well.

Most of what we have done last year and so far this year hasn’t felt like enough even though I’d be a dunce not to acknowledge what has changed and acknowledge we really couldn’t do much more with the time and resources we had to spare.  

The garden isn’t perfect in my mind at all.  It may never be.  Mother Nature has her hand in things as well, and trying to control her to the last leaf is exhausting, often impossible, and who wants to run around chasing leaves all the time anyway?

I still haven’t even managed to have one spot where everything is just right in going on two summers now because I can’t make up my mind what to do or where.  This kinda drives me crazy, because I’d like at least one spot that is just right I could gaze upon fondly on the days I wish I’d never gotten the notion of trying to work with things that grow.

Yet it just hasn’t happened, and I’m living with that reality.  Still, we have actual food crops growing that we started from direct sown seed in what is probably one of the most poorly attempted hugel culture beds in existence.  That’s worth something even if not all of them survived.

So if you hit a stumbling block, don’t agonize over it for too long (a little can’t hurt, especially if it’s something out of your control).  Even if something catastrophic happens (flood waters rising, critters eating ALL the seeds), something will still grow…eventually.  Might be weeds that threaten to take over the yard, might be weeds that threaten to take over the yard that pollinators will happily dance about in that also bring a bit of color and life to your day.

Sometimes you can make do–like when we used a found small metal squared frame and tied jute dangle trainers to support beans at first before we made the taller teepee.

Sometimes you change your mind–we stopped work on the second kitchen garden bed, and discussed what we really wanted before we’ll work on it further which will mean a bit more work, but will look less boring.

Sometimes you have to let it ride–like the safety glass bed that has been very time consuming for various reasons, so we stopped work there in favor of getting the kitchen garden going.

Sometimes you accept mistakes and maybe learn from them–I fried and almost killed a transplant.  That forced me to read up on it.  After moving it to a shadier spot and braving a pruning to help it heal, it recovered.

Yes, there are times when we do our walk around the property and I feel like not much has changed since we bought the place.  Yet I also know deep down that’s not true even if some of the changes simply happened without our help.  This is one of the reasons I take my office window view images.  I can watch the garden change over time, which helps ease the inner screaming of “IT’S NOT DONE YET!”  Instead I calm it saying, “Yes, but there’s progress.”

People change, wants change, needs change, schedules change, budgets change, even weather changes.  Let your garden change even if it’s not necessarily changing the way you planned.  If all goes well, even the invasives and aggressive growers won’t end the garden you work towards completely before next year.  The ToDo list will always exist no matter how close to perfection you get because next year is another cycle of its own.

Most of all, enjoy what you can.  Even when it is something like our volunteer Berry Army that just keeps adding to the ranks with very little help from us, I still allow myself to enjoy that they are there doing their own thing and feeding us.  It’s not as satisfying as being able to scratch something off the ToDo list, but still worth appreciating.