Mary Mary Quite Contrary...How Does Your Garden Grow?

image courtesy

Boy. Sure would like to know her gardening secrets!

Gardening has had quite a learning curve to it for me. 

I wish, dear readers, you could have seen my first garden or two.

Forget the cockle shells and silver bells.

Instead, imagine a thorny jungle filled with every kind of weed imaginable, so thick that halfway through the summer I gave up and decided to abandon the single watermelon that grew, or the lonely tomato plant that valiantly tried to outgrow the surrounding weeds, only to die by a stray rabbit. To enter was to take your life into your own hands, and if you forgot a tool, well, you would never find it again. Seriously.

Yep. It was not exactly what you would call a success.

   And then, eight years ago, God brought a lovely lady named Mary into my life. I think she must have had a million interesting thoughts as she watched me struggle to till, sow the seed, weed the ground, and then harvest with her. To her eternal credit she was never anything other than gracious, although I do now understand her occasional chuckling she would do when working with me. If it had been me I would have been howling on the ground, rolling in the dirt with tears coming out of my eyes. Ah, the blessings of ignorance in certain circumstances!

   But because of her, and a few other women who have graciously poured their knowledge into my life, I am able to now pour into others and tell them how to get started, what to do, and what has worked for me over the years. It has enabled me to understand more and more how things work, and that gardening really isnt as hard as getting through Geometry or Biology. It really is forgiving in many ways, and when you have God himself leading you and teaching you, if you have a curious mind and a willingness to learn by watching how things work in the real world, then you will do just fine.

   I want to talk just a little bit about what we covered last week for those of you just joining us today. We covered DIRT and how if there is anything you learn how to do right from the beginning, that this is the one thing that is crucial to success with gardening. We talked about different Options on how to get started, such as what kind of gardening you want to do, from container gardening all the way through a relatively  new concept called Keyhole Gardening, which is a brilliant way to garden if you have poor soil, or want to have a raised bed garden on a budget, with great results. I cant tell you tonight how, as we sat outside and watched the fantastic thunderstorm that passed south of us, how many times I must have mentioned that I want the half-dead trees cut down in front of the house so I can get my keyhole garden up and running. I only mention that because my  Handy Hubby told me if I keep talking about it he is going to start wearing ear plugs when we are outside in the front yard. oooops. Yes, if I am inspired about something I just cant be quiet about it. Sorry. Guess in some ways that makes me a good blogger! :)

   Last of all I again encouraged you to watch the Back to Eden film that is revolutionizing the concept of gardening for many folks all around the globe. If you havent seen it, AGAIN, I want to encourage you to click on the link at the bottom of the page and at the very least bookmark it to come back to when you have time. It is beyond amazing.

   So now lets talk about how to choose what to grow.

   You need to decide why you are gardening in the first place. Are you doing this for fun? To be a little more in charge of what your food sources are? To cut back on the grocery budget? To learn a new skill?

   Those are some of the most important questions you are going to have to answer, because then, and only then, can you move forward and figure out what you need to plant, and how big of a scale you are going to plan on.

   I'll be honest with you. When I started out I went head first, pell-mell, sink or swim because I had a family to feed, and we needed that food NOW. I have always approached life in that way, (just ask my mother) and it works for me.

   But it may not work for you. You may not be able to focus the time and energy into making it work no matter what it costs you in time, energy, or money.

   So decide how much time committment you want to put into it, how much food you want to get out of it, and what you plan to do with it all in the end. After all, it isn't a very good plan to jump in headfirst and plant a garden to feed five people for a year if you have no way, and no skills, to preserve that food for the time ahead of you. If you are one of those people who are looking at gardening as a way to seriously shave money off your food bill, or to learn a skill that puts you more in control of what you eat and feed your family, please please please head on over to my first series Making Do Without Missing A Thing and read up on how I feed my family of five, plus my mother a couple meals a week, on under $200 a month in groceries. It will hopefully inspire you and give you a whole new perspective on how and WHY to garden, and learn to preserve the harvest each year.

   So starting tomorrow I am going to cover each of the reasons you would garden in depth with a plan on which plants you would plant. Tomorrow we will begin with the "Baby Steps Plan", which will include ideas on how to container garden, what plants are best, how to utilize space and ideas for growing up instead of taking up larger spaces, and not going whole hog into providing more than a small portion of the food for the table during the summer. However, there will be something for everyone, because even if you are like me and want to provide as much food for your family as you can, you will learn something from tomorrow's post that hopefully you will never have heard before, even if you are going to have a large garden. Later on this week, we will cover the "Get Your Hands Dirty" plan for those who want to start somewhere, and who have the space to have a good size garden, and then finally the "Sink or Swim" plan for those of you who have the heart's desire and drive to just jump in and do what you can to provide the most for your family. I would encourage you to read all the posts, because not everyone's situation is the same and you may find something in each one that inspires you or gives you another idea to utilize in your garden!

   So until tomorrow, many blessings to you and yours! 

Baby steps tomorrow! :)

Heather

one of my favorite bees. :)