In early spring of 2014 I decided to take on vegetable gardening. I was really scared I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to grow vegetables. It all seemed very daunting. And there was this weird sense of responsibility. Like, what if all the seeds died? I killed food? It’s one thing to kill a flower, but to kill food?
Food plants are special. They hold the energy of life in them in a different way from flowers, or shrubs and trees. I could feel that energy when I went to the store to buy the seeds, and held the seed package in my hands. “Plant me,” they said, “I will feed you.”
While we were building the vegetable beds, I was organizing the seeds, reading my books and figuring out which seeds want to be planted next to which other seeds. When to plant the seeds, how deep to plant the seeds, how far apart. OMG – this seems really complicated!
Meanwhile, Brian and Jester are busy doing the hard work of drilling holes in the bed joints, all the way down to the ground, and then securing the joint with clamps and pounding the 3/8″ rebar through the holes and 12″ into the ground below. The boxes are made with 3 levels high of 6×6 cedar. These walls are NOT going to move.
Finished beds.
I had to post this picture of Brian. I saw him standing there taking a break and nearly fell over laughing. So I made him pose for a picture. He’s now my official garden gnome.
Filling the beds was back breaking work. 6 pickup truck loads of soil for each of the three beds. I did one bed per day.
I was both excited and scared to death when the first seedlings popped up. They’re growing! they’re actually growing! Believe it or not, I have never grown anything from a seed. I buy all my plants from the store, or get them from a friend, already growing in pots. So this whole vegetable garden thing took all my courage. What was I going to tell my husband if I couldn’t figure out how to grow vegetables after all the work he and Jester put into building this glorious garden?!? And how could I consider myself a gardener if I couldn’t grow something from seed? My whole gardening persona was on the line. But after much helicoptering, blessings, chanting, finger crossing, covering and uncovering the seedlings through the early frost period (up through May), they actually grew.