Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I am not a great gardener

I love the idea of gardening! When we first moved into this house I was so excited because I would finally get to try my hand at gardening. (We've lived in apartments for 4 years). The house that we are in has beautiful gardens. Gardens, plural, as in 7 garden spaces. I started off with the best of intentions. I went to Home Depot and purchased my first ever gardening tools. We went home and I takled the first (and smallest garden space). I had a great time, weeding and turning over the dirt. Later in the week I set out to tackle the another one of the smaller gardening spaces, this time I weeded about half the space before going in for the night. I did finish the space sometime in the next week. The third space I went after was the largest space. I finished the 1st third of it (with the perenials) in a few days, and the looked at the larger weed filled space, which I'm guessing traditionally has grown vegetables. Vegetables! Hmmm, I could plant vegetables. Back to home depot I went, imagining a fall filled with my own home grown squash, maybe some fresh herbs and tomatoes too, grown in the greenhouse. That weekend I started turning the dirt and ripping out the weeds. As the sun rose and my arms started to hurt, I began to think...this is a lot of work, how can I do this any easier...I still haven't figured that one out, and I must admit, although I did get most of the dirt turned, my seeds never got planted (so the squash we feasted on this weekend came from the Superstore, not my garden). Over the course of the rest of the summer, my interest in plants and weeding waxed and waned. I got excited about it again when something new and pretty bloomed. I was happy when David took me on a tour of my gardens and told me what plants I had (and what were weeds). But most of my interests went elsewhere. I decided that I have too much garden. Our neighbour informed us that the previous owners of the house loved to garden "all day, every day"...great for retired them, but not so great for mother of busy toddler me!
Fall is here now and my interest in gardening has once again risen. I've been very good about going in and weeding the patches. Pruning plants back for the winter...I'm still working on what is and is not a weed and hoping I haven't killed some of my plants in the pruning process.
I'm imagining a fresh begining to the garden of '07. One where my vegetables and herbs will get planted. One where I will put in sunflowers because I think they are pretty. One where I will dedicate at least one night a week to weeding and pruning. And one where my tulip and daffodil bulbs will come up. Elijah and I planted those this weekend. We've put them to bed for the winter, dreaming of a spring where I will be a real gardener at last!

2 Comments:

At 8:40 PM, Blogger Adam O said...

Hey Kristen!
I share your woes on identifying weeds in amongst the plants. Here in Fredericton we have a nice garden out front, and the backyard fence is lined with garden on one side. Nowhere near the area of garden that you have, but still a daunting task. I have given up for now, as I didn't think anything could be planted anymore. However, I am inspired by your post.
Please, do tell what I could plant this late in the year to make next sppring look beautiful!
I am really hoping to make it to the party on the 11th, it all depends on my non-existent (for now) job and the non-existent conflicts it may present.
Say hello to Elijah for me.

 
At 4:20 PM, Blogger Danielle said...

You should take pics of how the gardens look now and then update them in the spring and summer, so we can see the change. That's always fun.

 

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