Every year, as spring approaches, I start to get excited about gardening. I plant a lot of seedlings inside, try to figure out how to jam as many veggies in our small garden plot, and count down the days until the last frost. It happened last spring. The spring before. (The spring before that we moved and then I had a baby, so I only operated things that had remote controls.)
Every year I coddle the seedlings, harden them, plant them, watch them grow, and pinch tomato suckers. Then my squash dies (Vine borers got them again this year. I need a plan.) and then it gets hot and the mosquitoes come and I abandon it all.
Even though my garden is a weedy, overgrown mess, we’re still getting lots of green peppers, jalapenos and Hungarian wax peppers. Our butternut squashes are maturing, there are lots of eggplants ripening, and we get a handful of tomatoes almost every day.
But, I’m over it.
One thing we’re not over is our strawberry patch. We’ve never been able to enjoy our strawberries because birds and chipmunks beat us to them. Now we’re getting a handful of big, sweet strawberries every day. While Mary Virginia takes her morning nap, David and I go out and sit in the strawberry patch and eat berries off the vine. It’s the closest thing we get to a Norman Rockwell moment.
Homegrown strawberries seem to have a short shelf life. Short meaning you have to pick them and eat them the day they’re ripe.
See that eggplant David’s watering? It fell over in a storm. We haven’t righted it. Doing so would require initiative.
Speaking of David, all spring I ran defense against him for the garden. David wanted to dig and stomp my seedlings and splash in the hose when I watered everything.
Earlier this week I noticed things were looking droopy and I realized I hadn’t watered the garden in a while. David wanted the hose, so I just handed it to him. Have at it, kid. Make your mama proud.
The seasons are changing, but I haven’t planted a fall garden. I mean to every year, but by planting time it’s seems like too much. I keep telling myself, maybe next year, when I’m not pregnant. Maybe next year, when I don’t have a newborn. Maybe next year, when I don’t have a toddler.
But the truth might be, maybe we’ll have an awesome all-season garden when we have a gardener.
You sound like me!! I get so excited about gardening but it peeters out toward the end of summer when I’m done weeding and ready for it to be over. The last two years we had no space in Houston (and an odd growing season that I never quite figured out) so I’m excited to tackle it again this year!