I have started this year intending to learn the Earth’s poems and revel in the beauty they bring! It’s May, and although I have been working in and on my garden for weeks now, I feel like yesterday a grand opening ribbon was cut and the official season has started. Much to my husband’s dismay, I keep finding places to till up, and containers to fill up with dirt, and plants, and seeds, and hope. As for now, aside from my amazing year-round oregano plant and a few marigolds, it looks like dirt and a hodgepodge of containers and fence. But every day I walk outside to find a new plant baby raising its little green leaves into the world and sparking more inspiration in me for what this space in my yard could be.
This morning I looked back at my first “real” backyard garden that I started back in 2013. It was in the front yard and all containers (including an old kayak) and it was the tiny spark that started this dream of mine. Those little carrots and heads of lettuce were sparse, but they were delicious. Here I am now taking up a large portion of my backyard and hoping for more than the year before every spring. Turns out, more than the year before has been quite a leap since 2013. A little bit more knowledge and a little bit more attention to detail. Patience and anticipation have also been the two battling feelings I have learned to cherish.
The question now is what is my why. Why am I ready to do more, plant more, spend more money, time, and back yard space on this hobby? I have this beautiful wish for self sufficient living. I will admit it seems a bit lofty since I currently have the neon glow of a dollar store and a service station lighting my evening jaunts through my backyard oasis. But as I plot space for my chicken house and find a few more feet to plow up to fit the newest purchase from Baker’s Creek Seeds I can feel the future me calling out and thanking me for this time.
Jessica Sowards of Roots and Refuge (a huge blessing to me and my gardening hopes and dreams. Everyone should follow her) famously says, “Turn your waiting room into a classroom”. Let me tell you this is the best advice for anyone who wants to grow a few tomatoes to make the best salsa or, like me, yearns for a simple life of plenty that is all my own. I have a lovely, big backyard with great soil and plenty of room for all my kid’s playground equipment AND my garden. This blessing could be ignored for lack of perfection, but instead I am choosing to make it all I can. I am learning SO much everyday about the life I hope to live, even without the land and sprawling fields I hope to have one day.
So, this is my platform to share my journey. My failures will be documented beside my triumphs. The garden is a large part of it but so is scratch cooking, homeschooling, herbalism, foraging, and general lifestyle changes that lead me to the final goal. When I am finally standing there, on that land that is my own, with a glow from the moon and stars and not the neon glow of midtown, I will know my time was not wasted.