A garden is a long term relationship, are you ready for it?

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A garden is a long term relationship, are you ready for it?

Editorial

L. Rieber and Jesse Fujimoto

The starting of a garden can be the one of the most rewarding hobbies that you can start. Just imagining that sweet, crisp vine ripe tomato from outside your house in your dinner salad tonight. Yet, most people don’t realize when starting a garden, it is hard work, similar to a long term relationship. There are gives and takes, goods and bad, positives and negatives. One thing for certain though, it will not cheat on you.

If you treat your garden with respect, it will grow to take care of you. If you nourish and love your garden, it will provide nourishment, health and love back to you. A garden that will provide, needs to be close, personal and cared for. Just like in a relationship, a garden needs your attention.

The number one reason a garden seems to fail, is when it is located too far from your house. You can’t have a healthy positive long term relationship if the two in the relationship are just occasionally physically close. It just doesn’t work out. Either you or your garden will feel the daily separation and it will show.

Everyday I visit my garden. I smell the flowers, pick off a caterpillar or two from the kale. I pull a weed if I see it from the tomatoes. Laugh at the weed that is trying to blend in to the lettuce plant right next to it. Sometimes I move the mulch that protects my soil and I see an earthworm. I smile as I watch it squirm back into the ground.

I guess you can say I am intimate with my garden. It’s apart of my daily life. I know when it is sad and happy. When it is giving or taking. I especially know when there is abundance of yummy goodness that I am having for dinner. We are in each others lives everyday.

But there is work. Just like in a relationship. The soil needs protected. Mulch needs to be added. Compost needs to be turned. Plants need to be seeded. The weeds need to be pulled. The caterpillars handpicked. Seedlings need to be transplanted. Food needs to be harvested. Things need to be done, everyday.

Over all the garden needs your attention. Sometimes your going to have to give it your attention even when you don’t really want to. Providing high quality nourishment for yourself, from a garden that you built and maintain, can be the most liberating experience.

I challenge you to commit to a 3 year long relationship with a garden. Understand how it works. Learn what makes it happy. Spend your time cultivating this idea and see what it FEEDs you.

Thanks for your support! No Spray

 

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