Welcome To My Garden
How a small cherry tomato plant at a local farmer's market grew into an essential source of peace, therapy, and connection with the earth.
Gardening, for me, is life. It’s how I keep connected to the earth, nature, and myself. Gardening is something that started out small a few years ago and has grown to mean so much more to me than I could have ever imagined.
My garden is where I go when I have a hard day, or life is getting me down. The dirt is my sparring partner, while the plants are my therapists. My garden is where I leave all of my emotions when they are too much for me to carry.
So, how did this all begin? Quite simply, and unexpectedly. For someone who grew up wanting life in the big city, I never would have imagined I would feel so at home living simply, and in the dirt.
Growing up, I had a garden here and there but never got that into it. I enjoyed it but my heart wasn’t in it and after more than one failed attempt, not knowing what I was doing, and nobody to go to for assistance (this was before the internet, I’m old) I gave up and wrote myself off as a brown thumb.
Then, a few years ago, during the first summer in my new house, I was at a small farmers market and picked up a yellow cherry tomato plant (I cannot remember the breed, so don’t ask) from a small farm and planted it in my backyard, along with a couple bee balm plants and a salvia plant I picked up from the big box store down the street. To my surprise, they all survived the summer. And, not only did they survive, they thrived. I had the best tomatoes I had ever tasted and I got a little burst of confidence that maybe my thumb wasn’t as brown as I thought.
4th Generation Volunteers From the Original Tomato Plant
The next year, those plants came back. Even the tomatoes were back from those seeded the previous year (something I was not aware, at the time, was possible). I was so excited. I dug up those little tomato volunteers and moved them into a side plot all their own. There they thrived and gave me a beautiful harvest all summer long, and every summer since.
Unfortunately, I also decided to dig up the salvia because I realized I had greatly underestimated how big it, and the bee balm, would get and crowded is an understatement. So, out came the shovel, and the salvia. Unfortunately, unlike the tomatoes, the salvia wasn’t so lucky. The salvia is no more.
Last year, I had the brilliant idea that I was going to become a “real” gardener and go all out expanding the size and variety of the garden. So, farmer me bought a shovel and a hoe and went to town plowing away at the yard. Many bruises, blood, sweat, tears and one really bad sunburn later I had a beautifully hoed plot big enough to feed me all the fruits and vegetable a lady could ever want, or so I thought.
The garden turned out okay. It wasn’t everything I thought it would be, and I was still having to buy my produce from other growers, but it was a wonderful learning experience. It allowed me to dive into this wonderful world of kitchen gardens and really take part in, and appreciate, the food that was going into my body. I grew a variety of crops. Some turned out wonderfully (nothing like a home-grown tomato!) and some not so wonderfully (Tip: Do not go out of town a week without lining up someone to water your cucumbers). But, that’s life. Sometimes things will turn out as you planned, and sometimes they will teach you how to move forward.
That brings us to the present garden. I took what I learned from last year’s garden, researched insane amounts and put all this new knowledge into planning and planting. I got started early (arguably too early), prepped my plot, and dug right in. Now, two and a half months in I am really starting to see the fruits of my labor. I haven’t gotten a harvest, yet, but things are looking promising and I am already learning new lessons to use moving forward as I continue to grow my little Missfit Garden, and myself.