When you fertilize, don't forget to water!

So I totally just gave away my takeaway with title, but bear with me anyway. I laughed at myself for using a gardening analogy, because even though I love playing in my garden, let's just be honest. I am not very good at it. This year was yet another checkmark on my box of miserable gardening failures. Why didn't I post many pictures of my garden this year? Because it was really pathetic this year, that's why. I have to remind myself of my own advice about being an imperfect gardener.

But you see, that's not really the point. Today's garden post is really about the garden of your soul. I've spent the entire month really taking care of myself, tending my own personal garden, and doing things that bring me joy. I've been doing a lot of art journaling. I've been writing. I've been taking naps. I've been exercising. But as I realized today, it's all fertilizer, and I forgot to water.

One of my most important self-care items is that I take baths. For me a bath is not about getting clean. That's what I use the shower for. For me, when I take a bath, it is all about cleaning my soul and filling my spirit. Now before you think I'm going all deep and spiritual, let me reassure you. I tried to do personal growth and Bible study in the tub. It doesn't work for me. No, for me, the bath is all about taking my mind off of whatever is on my mind, not thinking about anything, and just relaxing. I realized a few weeks ago, during a massage, that I don't always know how to relax, even when that's the task at hand. My therapist kept saying, "relax," and I kept saying, "I am," and then I realized I wasn't. Why? Because I was thinking about it. When I'm in the bath, I bring a book, not something that will make me think, but something that will make me not think of anything beyond the black and white print. I stay in the tub until that book is done. Sometimes, I take a stack of books, and I seriously will not leave the tub until those books are read.

What does this have to do with water and fertilizer? Other than I take a bath in the water, and I usually put Epsom Salts in it (which is a kind of fertilizer, I think- well, at least it helps plants grow).

With all this great fertilizing activity I'm doing to feed my soul, I forgot my water. I haven't taken a bath in at least a month. No gasps of horror, please, I still shower. But for me, that weekly, sometimes nightly, activity is what waters my soul. The fertilizer is great, but without water, my poor little soul has been starving.

I had a weird moment this evening. I was doing all the things I know to do to take care of myself. I even skipped a social event I was really looking forward to because I was having a mini "crap, I've been around too many people lately" attack. I was being really good to myself, and yet I just wanted to cry. I had this horrible feeling in my chest, and I thought, "there is no logical reason why I want to cry." But no matter how hard I tried to feel better, I couldn't. And then I thought, "I just need a bath."

As soon as I lowered my body into the tub, I felt better. I read a long book, and as I contemplated a second book, it hit me. The water is what sustains me. My regular baths are my way of watering my soul, and I haven't done it in a long time. I tried arguing with myself for a while, and then I realized that all the other good things I've been doing, that's the fertilizer. Fertilizer is a good thing, but if your plants aren't getting water, no amount of fertilizer is going to make them grow. They're just going to burn out and die. Which is why I sat here, for no good reason, wanting to cry.

Lesson learned. I'm not going to skip bath time just because I'm doing other good things for myself. I think we all have things in our lives that are our water. Mine just happens to be kind of literal.

Are you feeling unbalanced? In what ways do you need to water your soul?

Blessing your family with your imperfections

As a recovering perfectionist, I've had to let go of the need for everything to be just perfect. If you've followed my gardening journey, you'd know that I've allowed myself to do a lot of it imperfectly. And if you're not a gardener, that's okay... because so much of what I've learned can be applied to you as well.



My princess loves corn. When I planted the garden last year, she begged for corn, so I planted it, but I didn't know when to harvest it, so the evil squirrels got to it before I could. No corn for us last year. So this year, I planted corn again, and despite reading things about corn, I really had no idea when to harvest. But with the coming frost, I had to decide- pick the corn or leave it for the squirrels. I chose to pick the corn.



The corn we picked was small and not well-developed. I'm not sure what went wrong, but I realized that even the small amount we got from our garden would be enough for dinner. The little one loved eating the corn that we grew. It didn't matter that it wasn't pretty or that the ears were tiny and misshapen. My daughter now has the memory that her mommy planted corn for her, and we got to eat that corn, and it was delicious.



I'm so glad that I didn't let last year's corn failure keep me from trying again. I won't win any prizes or be on any master gardener shows, or even be the go-to girl for gardening advice. But I do have a little girl who got to have a really cool experience.



What have you been afraid to try because you don't think you'll do a good job?

 

There's just not enough preparation

I am a warm person. When I say warm, I mean that I always like to be warm. Unfortunately, I tend to be cold most of the time. When we swing into fall and winter, I'm always sad because I know that I'm going to be cold- soon.

So when the weather report said it would snow Saturday and that it would get really cold Thursday night, I prepared. I brought in the produce that would get ruined, and I covered my garden to keep it going just a little bit longer.

As you can see, I got a nice selection of things. Yum!! I'm thinking there may be some zucchini bread in our family's future. :)

 

Imagine my horror when I woke up this morning to this:



Yes, friends, that icky white stuff is known as snow. Snow that we weren't supposed to get until SATURDAY. It's FRIDAY. I needed that extra day to mentally prepare.  Even though the snow is already gone, I'm still sad because it means that I am finally forced to face the reality that my warm days really are leaving.

So to cope, I'm making chili in the crockpot.

How do you cope with changes in the weather?

Lest you think I'm a garden expert...

Here are a few mysteries I still haven't figured out about my garden.



 

Yes, this is corn. You might have seen that I have a few rows in my last post. However... I have no idea when the corn is ready. Last year I grew corn, but by the time I picked it, the squirrels had eaten most of it. I have corn again, and I have no idea what to do with it. Maybe I should stop growing corn. Except if I did that, my little princess would be upset. *sigh*

 

 

 

And for exhibit B, we have cauliflower. Last year, I grew it next to broccoli, and then I read that you shouldn't grow them near each other. Needless to say, it didn't turn out well last year.

So this year, I grew them on opposite sides of the yard. And this is what my cauliflower looks like. I'm guessing that the purple means it's not ready yet? Hopefully it'll turn out, but I'm thinking I may have done something wrong again. *sigh*

 

I think what I love about working in my garden is that it's a lot of trial and error. Even though I am disappointed when my projects fail (like the cauliflower, one of my fave veggies), it's always interesting to see what I learn at the end of every season. Maybe one day I'll be a master gardener, and I'll have a super fabulous garden. And maybe it'll always be organized chaos. I do hope, that as you look at my garden pics and think that you'd like a garden of your own someday, that you give it a shot! Don't worry about being perfect or knowing what you're doing. Mine isn't perfect, but we still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

 

Garden tour

Since I've spent a good part of the week talking about my garden, I might as well give you a tour. I've always been hesitant to show pics of my garden, because as a recovering perfectionist, all I can see are the flaws. But you know, I've got a pretty great garden, and I need to learn to accept that things will never be perfect. My garden is messy, full of weeds, and a work in progress. Kind of like me.



My herbs... I took them out of the grass so hubby can mow the lawn. I usually keep them in the grass because I always forget to water them, and at least if they're in the grass, the sprinklers get them. The rest of my garden is on an automatic waterer because I'd forget to water those plants too.

 

 

 

The path leads to my grape arbor- when we moved in, they had the arch thing, and I thought it would be perfect for grapes. The only problem is I planted grapes with seeds in them, and  after a while, we get tired of eating them. I don't know what to do with the rest of the grapes.

 

 

Our house also came with a sour cherry tree (not pictured) and an apple tree. The apples are yummy but pretty buggy. I'm going to talk to an arborist to see what I can do about that.  We have pumpkins under the apple tree, and they spread out into the lawn. I think it's hubby's sinister scheme to have to mow less of our lawn, since he never mows where my pumpkins are.

 

 



I planted some blueberries and raspberries along the fence. We've gotten a few raspberries, but no blueberries yet.

 

 

 

And for the main garden... we originally started with one large plot but I needed more room, so I got the two raised beds. The main problem with our main garden is that we have shade from large trees at the neighbor's plus our shed. So I tried putting my raised beds in a sunnier area. I have a strawberry patch along the fence by the raised beds. The only problem with that location is that on the other side of the fence, my neighbors have dogs and they never pick up the poop. So on hot days, it really stinks over there.



All in all, I'm pretty proud of my little garden. I'm still not satisfied with how everything is laid out, but I learn new things every years, and eventually, I'll figure out what I'm doing.

So that's my garden! I hope you enjoyed a trip to my little plot.

 

The imperfect gardener

Every year, I grow a garden. Most of the time, it's a mess of weeds and strange plants, and most of my grand plans never quite pan out. I will admit that my thumb is a sort of brownish black and I can't take much credit for my garden's success. But every once and a while, I come up with something that makes me exceedingly proud of myself.

Last night I was making stock from our leftover chicken. I'd forgotten to buy carrots at the store, and then I remembered- I have some in my garden. Most years, my carrots are these pathetic spindly things that are an insult to the eater. But this year, I tried something different. I bought a new variety that promised rainbow carrots, and I planted them in a raised bed instead of the ground. And now...

I have carrots!!



 

So I had these lovely carrots to put in my stock. Then, I went out and harvested some fresh herbs (which I still don't fully know how to use. I'm still learning.) Those went into the stock too.

And I got to thinking that while I'm not the world's best gardener, it still blesses my family. My kids eat fresh grapes and tomatoes, and now carrots. I use a lot of our other vegetables to cook and prepare my family healthy meals. Over the summer, I had a much lower grocery bill because I had my own lettuce and other fresh veggies. I never got any big tomatoes (sob!) but I have a ton of the baby ones. (Anyone know what to do with a ton of cherry tomatoes?) Some of my stuff grew, and some didn't, but what I do have has been really neat to share with my family.

A lot of people tell me that they'd like to have a garden, but they don't know what to do. I didn't either. And I still don't really know what I'm doing. But half the fun is in the experimentation.

What have you wanted to do, but haven't tried because you were worried about not knowing what to do?

 

Waiting for the soil to be ready

The trouble with living in Colorado is that our growing season is so short. And the weather so variable. Last month, we went from 80's to snow, back to warm, then cold again. Which means I have to continue waiting for the weather to be good enough to plant my garden.

For me, the hardest part about this weather is that on the days that we're approaching 70, I am sorely tempted to go out and plant my lovely little plants. In fact, on one of our 80 degree days, I did go to the garden center and buy a few plants. The next garden center had a big sign reminding us that the danger of last frost is not past until May 15th.

Waaa!!!

So my plants are sitting in my little red wagon. Every day, I wheel the wagon out to get sunlight, and at night, I wheel it back in. I still have a few more plants to buy, but for now, it makes me happy to see that I've gotten a start on my garden. And yes, for all of  my urban homesteading dreams, I still buy plants. I have terrible luck starting from seed because the light in our house is terrible, so my seedlings get leggy and don't transplant well. But hey, I am growing my own food, and it'll be really yummy come summer.

Even though I am impatient with the waiting, it is a nice reminder of all the seasons of life. There are so many projects I want to do RIGHT NOW, but it's not the right season. I could plant my tomatoes today, and they might be okay. Of course, my youngest was born during a May snowstorm, so my tomatoes might die. Which is a great reminder that even though I'm tempted to go for it, it's time to wait. I'm waiting on a lot of things in my life right now, so having this physical reminder of the necessity of waiting has been really good for me.

Is there anything you're waiting on for the right season? How do you deal with the temptation to plant prematurely?

Waiting for the soil to be ready

The trouble with living in Colorado is that our growing season is so short. And the weather so variable. Last month, we went from 80's to snow, back to warm, then cold again. Which means I have to continue waiting for the weather to be good enough to plant my garden.

For me, the hardest part about this weather is that on the days that we're approaching 70, I am sorely tempted to go out and plant my lovely little plants. In fact, on one of our 80 degree days, I did go to the garden center and buy a few plants. The next garden center had a big sign reminding us that the danger of last frost is not past until May 15th.

Waaa!!!

So my plants are sitting in my little red wagon. Every day, I wheel the wagon out to get sunlight, and at night, I wheel it back in. I still have a few more plants to buy, but for now, it makes me happy to see that I've gotten a start on my garden. And yes, for all of  my urban homesteading dreams, I still buy plants. I have terrible luck starting from seed because the light in our house is terrible, so my seedlings get leggy and don't transplant well. But hey, I am growing my own food, and it'll be really yummy come summer.

Even though I am impatient with the waiting, it is a nice reminder of all the seasons of life. There are so many projects I want to do RIGHT NOW, but it's not the right season. I could plant my tomatoes today, and they might be okay. Of course, my youngest was born during a May snowstorm, so my tomatoes might die. Which is a great reminder that even though I'm tempted to go for it, it's time to wait. I'm waiting on a lot of things in my life right now, so having this physical reminder of the necessity of waiting has been really good for me.

Is there anything you're waiting on for the right season? How do you deal with the temptation to plant prematurely?