As a Vermont born human, I grew up in and around nature. Being outside, shaking hands with the environment was just a part of everyday life. As such, I came to know Mother Nature as many things. She could be a source of entertainment—as many of my childhood days were spent either romping around pretending I was Pocohantas, or picking every leaf, berry, and pine cone I could find to make “magic soup.” She could be a source of humility that puts your smug booty right back in it’s place—as anyone who has ever been stuck outside in a thunderstorm, or driven through a blizzard, knows. She could also be a source of peace—nothing like seeing the view from the summit of a mountain, am I right?
All that is to say, I find the great outdoors simultaneously soothing and energizing. And now, as a transplant to the very bottom of New England, I’ve traded my quiet mountains and fields for overcrowded suburbia and life at sea-level. I think this is why, for the past few years, I’ve had this hankering to have a garden. To—no pun intended—reconnect with my roots and reintroduce myself to that feeling of natural symbiosis that has been lacking around these parts as of late.
Why a garden and not just go for a hike, you ask? Well, I think there is something, dare I say, organic about the process of sowing, tending to, and cultivating your own stuff—be it food, flowers, or hey, even a bed full of weeds. In truth, I believe we humans have been fortunate, and foolish, enough to study and manipulate nature to the point where we ask it to work for us. So much so, that I fear we may have forgotten what it’s like to work within our environment. It is for this reason, and my general quest for reconnection with dirt, that I could not agree more with the concept of getting in there, working with the earth, and hoping your kindness and attention is repaid with delicious, delicious noms.
While the above is all well and good, my pursuit of a garden was—and is—complicated by a few simple facts:
1. I have a black thumb with plants. I so much as look at anything that grows, and it surrenders its life. That’s power, my friends.
2. I don’t own any property in which to put a garden. We are twenty-somethings who rent. And most landlords don’t appreciate you tilling their property for your own amusement. Unless you give them some of the tasty treats you grow. But then again, I’m pretty sure this is called feudalism. And we humans have already been there and done that.
3. I try to avoid participating in Monsanto-esque stuff. And it seems like genetic modification, chemical processing and treatments of plants, and just all around shady behaviors surround contemporary farming and gardening. Ergo, starting my own garden would require a rear-end ton of research on my part to make sure I am being both environmentally conscious and sticking to my ethical guns. Ain’t nobody got time for research ‘round these parts these days.
But finally, in the early Spring, struck with ennui due to the lack of earth in my life, I decided to catalyze. I researched my patootie off. I bought copious amounts of gardening swag. And I got busy.
Let’s start with the concept. Being that I cannot dig up my backyard—since it isn’t really mine—I had to be able to have a “potted garden.” This means that everything I wanted to grow had to be able to do so in containers. Additionally, and I won’t bore you here with the details as to why, it was very important to me that I have high-quality, organic, non-GMO plants. After some researching, it seemed the easiest way to ensure this was to purchase seed and start plants myself. Lucky for me, I found a Vermont company that sells non-GMO, organic and heirloom seeds. I purchased copious amounts.
Next, with the help of my mom (Hi Mom!), I got some really nice containers and some organic dirt. As a side note, ORGANIC dirt?! I mean, what has the world come to when there is now organic and non-organic dirt, for Pete’s sake?!?! Ranting aside, I also got a bunch of seed starting pods and a nice spray bottle to mist my little baby seeds to life.
Then I got to sowing.
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| Sow much potential goodness. GET IT?!?! |
Then the seeds got to growing.
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| Garden Guardian. |
Then I had to learn about transplanting. This means taking your baby plants—a.k.a. seedlings—and putting them into the ground. Or in my case, their containers.
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| This is an okay substitution for dirt. |
And, low and behold, here’s my deck garden--a couple weeks post-transplant!
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| Green Machine. |
I’m pretty proud of it. Mostly, because it hasn’t died yet. Though it’s had some closecalls, believe you me. Most notably, after a particularly heavy rainfall throughout the course of one day, I nearly lost them all due to container floods. But, being the stubborn gal that I am, I drilled drainage holes in those suckers and put them on top of my dryer to desiccate. Victory.
I will say that I did have to cave with some of the plants. Or at least, that not all that you see here was hand-grown by me. Consider these my confessions:
1. After my mint seeds left much to be desired, I decided to purchase pre-grown plants—which, because I cannot find anything to the contrary—I am sure are both GMO and have some chemical treatment prior to coming into my possession. Win some, lose some.
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| Sad mint. |
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| Happy mint. |
2. I was a proud recipient of two tomato varietals from a friend. He actually dried out his own seeds from last year’s crop for this year’s planting season, then started them himself. So, I don’t know if they are non-GMO, but they are organic and have much love and care behind them. They are a welcome addition, to be sure, and are my strongest plants to date!
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| Check out these behemoths. |
3. Lastly, I need some bees to frequent my garden to get some pollination up in here. So yesterday, I went out and picked up some flowers to lure them over. I don’t know if they even make organic flowers…but these ones certainly are not…since they were both cheap and from the Home Depot. But it did work! Within 20 minutes, I had a tiny little honey bee doing some work on the salvia blossoms and a wicked badass looking caterpillar chilling out on the leaves. Party at my place!
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| Salvias and Zinnias |
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| English Lavender |
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| Gerbera Daisies |
So, all in all, it’s been a really fun process thus far! It’s been very gratifying—and pretty amazing—to put these tiny seeds into some dirt and hope for the best. Then a week later, those seeds are tiny little sprouts. And soon enough, they are these adolescent dudes chilling in a container on the deck! How quickly they grow up! At this point, I’m just psyched that most of my plants have made it this long! I’ll be really impressed if I’m actually able to harvest anything! Time will tell, but in the meantime, it’s pretty awesome to be able to play in dirt again!
Until next time, here’s to a great weekend! Go get your hands dirty!
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| Hatch is watching. |
