Perfect Time for a Second Chance

I’ve been seriously gardening for about three years now. Each year there is some good and some bad that comes out of my limited experience, but I learn a little more each year. This year is no different. 

In fact, this year was kind of bad for my summer crop—tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce and some herbs. Well, the lettuce and herbs did well. But the tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers are lacking…a lot.  Some soil issues really messed those up this year. But again, you live and learn.

The spring crop wasn’t bad, getting a good number of small but extremely tasty strawberries and a planting of some raspberry plants. 

But with fall comes a time to really have another shot at a good 2011 harvest, and really, these should be the easy ones to grow—more lettuce, some spinach, broccoli and cauliflower seeds have been planted and will be ready for transplant into our “fall bed” soon enough.  So we’ll see what happens. Honestly, if I can’t start getting this right, the Mrs. isn’t going to be happy. 

Really it’s not all about saving money on produce, or eating organic or locally grown stuff…well, it kind of is about keeping it local and reconnecting with your food…but at this point, it’s about pride and accomplishment. 

I think there’s a reason that the only good gardeners I know personally are over the age of 60. It’s because it took this long for them to really know what they’re doing and now that they’re older, they have the time to do it. I wish I had gardening mentors, someone who could help me along the way. The Internet has been my guide so far. 

The boys really like helping, too, so I’m hoping as they get older, I can get this thing licked so I can teach them a thing or two.  Right now, they love watering and digging, just not in a very deliberate way at this point. Maybe in the years to come we can be successful in filling moms produce bowl every week together. As many people do, my wife and I briefly (for 2 minutes or so) talk about what we would do if we won a big lottery jackpot (we’d have to play first!) and we both agreed that we would buy a large plot of land and just garden. That’s all. Nothing else. No fancy cars, no exotic vacations, not the usual rich dreams. And I’m not talking about a large scale farm where we sell our produce and what not, I’m talking about just living off of the land and enjoying life. Just us, in the field with the boys and the dogs, asking for mother earth to provide for our little family as she has to millions for years. A little part of life we really take for granted.