My first day of a sabbatical, a rest from the normal routine of my job working with college students.  So this summer, I do not have to travel to a far-off place and help lead a program for college students called Summer Project.  I love that part of our job, but it's nice to have a break.

And during this break, I have chosen to dig myself and our yard deep into gardening projects.  Having only been a homeowner for two years and always traveling during my summers, I have not had opportunities to grow things.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE flowers.  Can't have enough exposure to them during the spring and summer months.  My favorite spot in Oxford, Ohio, (where I lived for 4 years) was Miami University's formal garden.  It is arrayed with tulips, hyacinths and daffodils every spring--well over 2,000 bulbs according to the gardener.  Then, its flower beds are turned over to wide arrays of annuals and perennials for summer to fall flair.  And of course, the small rose garden just across from the pergola showers you with its charm during every visit.

Of course, a question has been lurking in the back of my mind for a year or more. I love gardens.  But do I like garden-ing?  I think pondering that question was very helpful for me in order to approach this gardening project with some realistic expectations.  I spent time thinking about the difference between experiencing a garden and gardening.   I loved my leisurely walks through the formal garden--smelling the roses, photographing the hyacinths and tulips, sometimes sitting alone with God, sometimes studying a passage from the Bible with a college student, sometimes visiting with a friend.  Every once in a while I would run into the gardener and I dreamed of having her job and getting to stay in the garden all day.  But she was there to work, not to leisure.  She had a task list to accomplish.  Plants to maintain back in the greenhouse.  Weeds to pull.  Beds to prepare.  Transplants to place.  Dead branches to prune.  Fertilizer to sprinkle.  Mulch to spread.  Dirty tools to haul away.  Etcetera.  Etcetera.  And finally, sidewalks to sweep so visitors would never notice she had been there.

You see, many good gardeners create spaces for us to enjoy and we give no real thought to how much work it took to create that space.  Would I really enjoy being a gardener?  We shall see.

 I also have a growing intrigue in vegetable gardening.  Doesn't every northerner long for tasty homegrown tomatoes every summer.  And doesn't every northerner want to know if they have what it takes to make things grow?  I guess from the time we were first placed in a garden, we have a question that whispersin our soul: do I have a green thumb?  Can I work the earth and eat of it?  For me, the intrigue started to take hold as we visited the Bloomington (Indiana) Farmers Market every Saturday.  It's a wonderful Saturday morning activity--like attending a carnival every week, but the prices are fresh vegetables, berries, melons, apples, pears, herbs, plants--breakfast sandwiches!  Prices aren't necessarily cheap at the farmer's market, but the food is definitely much fresher and tastier than the super markets.  Local, clean food is all the buzz these days and I am the first busy bee to raise a stinger about our broken American food system.  So, let's grow some of our own so we--like the other local growers--can feast with some peace of mind.

I always liked chatting with the farmers as I made my purchases at the market.  Asking them how their farm/garden is doing.  Asking the difference between this or that heirloom tomato.  Learning that I could take my basil home, put it in a jar of water and then pot it in soil once it grew roots.  The aisles and truck beds of produce looked so beautiful and bountiful.  But would I really enjoy the toil and labor that brought these farmers to this pinnacle of displaying and selling their bounty?  Most of their hands showed signs of prolonged work--swollen, outlined in faded dirt stains and weathered from the sun.  They seemed to love to interact with the earth and thought nothing of digging their fingers into the soil of a tomato plant to see if it needed watered.  I'm not there yet.  I don't know if I ever will be.  But I am taking my first crack at vegetable gardening this summer and I've already learned a lot that I want to remember for future gardens.  


A rough overview of my plans for the summer:

Flowers: I am in the on-going process of planting several (like 25-30) perennials around the yard.  Some in already established flower beds (that need cleaned up) and some will go into flower beds that my husband and I will build.  I won't bore you with all the specifics except to say that we are trying to conquer a hill in our backyard.  Our hope is to establish raised flower beds and vegetable beds on an otherwise weed-run and eroding hill.  With a small sub-division yard, it's a large part of what we have to work with.  It's also all clay.  Clay is full of nutrients, but not in a form that plants can use.  So clay is very hard to grow things in.  Plus, with all the erosion we need to reinforce any soil amendments so they aren't just washed down the hill. 

I am being challenged to learn patience because we, first, we cannot accomplish all these projects at once because each on is a fair amount of work.  And second, even once things are planted they do not immediately morph into the Better Homes and Gardens size and shape.  Perennials will look better and better as the years go (and they receive proper care and pruning).  But this year, it will look as if we planted things too far apart.

Vegetables:  My amazing and innovative husband built me raised garden beds that are stair-stepped up the hill.  To start, he built 4 beds (complete with stairs).  One of the beds, though, will be a decking platform for me to work from.

I am using the square foot gardening method which you can read about at http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/.  I planted the garden Mother's Day weekend and then left for two weeks (with friends watering every other day).  I came home to see most things off to a good heart start.  However, a cat or some other critter had dug up about half of my first box (and gotten into my compost container and walked off with lots of good stuff).

It's still early, so I have the advantage of using this as an opportunity to do some successive plantings so that we won't have just one peak harvest and then nothing.

The hill in our backyard before we started gardening.

Some flower seeds started.  Marigolds, bee balm, cone flower and daisies. All flowers that should grow well on the hill once they are well established.  I will put the marigolds in the vegetable garden to fight off pests from below and above-- nematodes and bunnies.

The box garden just after I planted my seeds and starts on Mother's Day.

Strawberry plants in front of the retaining wall.  I am already wanting to move them because they do not get sun until about noon and I have since dreamed of creating a beautiful flower border here.  Gardening is both impulsive and intentional.  It's just a bummer when an impulsive move to buy strawberry plants collides with some long-term plans.  We may or may not get around to moving them.  They won't produce much until next year, so now is the time to move them.

My husband moved the outdoor fire stove that the previous owners left.  It created a great "dead" spot for me to dig up--an impulsive move that I am quite excited about.  It's tempting to plant a bunch of flowers in here, but I am trying to be patient and allow these perennial plants and herbs to establish themselves for much enjoyment for summer to come.  From the wall out, I planted: lavender, red annual (for color), parsley (just an annual), spearmint (to make fresh and dried tea), red flower (for color), butterfly bush (I think I will move this to the back hill...it's going to get HUGE), creeping thyme (for a fun ground cover to step on and smell).  Patience, the lavender and mint stand to get very large.  I brought home some lemon balm from my mother-in-law's Ohio garden.  I will replace the butterfly bush with the lemon balm.  Maybe this will become my tea garden!

It's been fun and motivating to read and learn so much about different plants and vegetables and gardening methods.  It's just so hard to keep them all straight.  I am hoping to record some highlights and methods I am using so that I can learn from this experience and build off it in the future.  Of course, I don't know if/when I will get to plant another vegetable garden with our summer travel schedule.  Perhaps God will provide a garden-loving house-sitter. 

Perennial plants I bought at a sale in Ohio.  At $1, $2 and $3 I couldn't beat the prices.  Perennials are $6-10 a plant at the nurseries.  I was so excited because my efforts to start some perennials from seed have been slow or no-go. 

In two weeks, the butterfly bush (second from bottom of photo) has doubled in size.  I bought it at the farmer's market.  Like I said, I am going to move it to the hill because it's going to get really big.  I have another one planted in the front yard that I will keep in that location and see how it does this year.  Butterfly bushes can be cut back to size, but from what I read they can be invasive so I will need to watch out.

The top veggie bed with tomatoes, cucumber, some mint, sage, cucumber and empty spots that either never started or are awaiting a marigold.

The marigolds are doing the best out of all these starts.  I will transplant them into the vegetable garden this week.  The other plants will go on the back hill once we build their beds. 

Bottom veggie bed.  Got dug up by some animal while we were away.  There are cats who live next door, but I am not sure this is their work. 

I long for more curb appeal (without a lot of shrubs), but it's probably going to take some research, planning and yes a shrub or two to get the front flower bed in better shape.  I planted a small salvia (the blooms have faded and the leaves are being eaten by something), a row of zinnias (which are doing great in just 2 weeks), a phlox (which has doubled in size) and some annuals to add color for the season.  The other side of the bed has a daylily, siberian iris, russian sage, a "Dr. Suess" tree as my neighbor calls it and the lattice where I am going to move my clematis plant.
I can't keep planting and moving things or they aren't going to grow well--if at all.
Lesson learned.  Think twice, plant once--a spin-off of the carpenter's rule: measure twice, cut once.