Plant a Seed: Pictorial Progress of My 1st Big Gardening Adventure

I skipped over most of the veggie aisles last night at the market, (except for tomatoes, which are bursting but not yet ripe in our garden.) It felt a little surreal (not sure why), and absolutely wonderful. When I started this whole affair back in March, I had little knowledge about gardening outside of building upon and maintaing our perennial english and cottage style gardens. I knew I wanted to start from heirloom seeds.

I knew that we had to have raised beds built in our front yard because our backyard is happily and beautifully dominated by maple, cedar and birch trees. And patio. Shade friendly perennial gardens. Putting my worries aside on what the neighbours might think, (yep it’s a reality – especially in small towns) even though I totally got approached with wonder by many of them and ignorant sarcasm by but one. No need to get into detailing that. So putting all of that aside, because we sure weren’t going to let ‘neighbourly’ reactions dictate whether we grow food for our family or not, we entered into a trade agreement with some good friends to help us design and built it all, who know way more about all of this stuff that we do…

I never did get around to sharing the middle-stage process; the newly built beds and freshly planted seedlings and invisible seeds. If you want to see the plans (I actually did some mock-ups) and the building process send me some emails or comment here (I love that action), and I’ll happily pull it together.

I suppose if I think about it, now, 5 months in and reaping the harvest of it all; it’s been a lot of hard work. Although it really doesn’t feel that way. I suppose that comes largely in part due to having a big love for gardening in the first place. Late night or early morning weeding and watering takes but minutes (10-15), each day and that time, with my bare feet immersed in dew-kissed grass and my hands touching rich earth is rather cathartic.

This is not a new revelation; many a gardener makes such claims. I actually look forward to my time in our gardens and spending a lot of time outside with our family, or entertaining and winding down. It was important that we create a cottage style garden; a mix of herbs, perennials and vegetables and berries. Aesthetically and aromatically pleasing – a garden like that brings all the bees and butterflies to the yard. An nurturing, nourishing oasis for them and us.

Our garden troubadour below welcomes you…come on in and enjoy.

V I S I T O R

Until the next. xo