Get posts by email
Raising Beds, Lowering Expectations
May 17, 2008
It started innocently enough when there was still 2 feet of snow on the ground. Reading a book or two that encouraged me to grow more of our own food. Just a few more tomato plants than last year, a couple rows of corn (Brienne's favorite summer vegetable), some strawberries, a bed for spring, summer and fall greens. Simple enough, I already had a basic bed started except that I can't plant greens directly in that bed due to elevated lead levels so this required a raised bed. No problem. We took the easy route and ordered a cedar "bed-in-a-box" from Naturalyards.
Ok, so we order the materials and make a plan to build it. Oh and the corn, hum... need to build a bed for that. No problem. Secure newspaper from Damien's work and build a bed directly on top of the grass using the lasagna method. The only method I use for building any kind of flower or vegetable garden.
Not forgeting the six perennial beds that I've started over the past 3 years around the house. Order the mulch for those beds. Ok, so now there's a pile of mulch in my driveway taunting me each time I got out to hang laundry that I haven't finished the spring perennial bed transplanting and clean up.
Where were we... the corn. Yes, build the corn bed. Oh, but before that I needed to fix the pea and carrot bed, put scallopped brick edging on the calendula and strawberry beds, not necessary but oh so pretty. Ack, speaking of berries those raspberries are getting out of control! Add "trellis the raspberries" to the list.
Oh man, and this lawn should be more accurately called hard-packed clay growing plantain, chickweed and clover. Gotta get it aerated. Call a lawn service and get a quote, easy enough. But we should spread compost on top to break up some of the clay and add organic matter to the soil. Hum... where to get that much compost and how much more is this going to cost?
Today the gardening to-do list finally did me in. And I remembered my life motto for these kind of situations "when you can't meet your expectations, lower them".
In those dreary days of March when growing a simple garden sounds well, simple, it's easy to forget about everything else I need to do. Like my household responsibilities of buying groceries, cooking meals, washing the clothes, paying bills and scrubbing the toilet. Ok, I rarely scrub the toilet but I do wipe the bathroom sink down like everytime I'm in there. Oh and I homeschool sometimes homeschool my kids. And my best friend wants to take me hiking every weekend and my kids want time to just "hang out" with their mother, and not the "can you hand me that spade?" hanging out.
Today I tossed the garden to-do list in the recycle paper, I never follow it anyway. I love my garden and I love gardening but I've reached my "lower your expectations" point of the season. Thank goodness there's the farm and my family won't starve in August if the tomatoes aren't planted next week. I'm going hiking.
Filed Under
You can subscribe to comments on this article using this form.
If you have already commented on this article, you do not need to do this, as you were automatically subscribed.
Karen on May 18, 2008, 1:59 a.m.
This is from Dad Good for you, some of our best made plans are lofty and noble but are un achievable. Its best for us to understand this and be willing to change our expectations as then we can allow ourselves to "live" instead of always feeling like we are a "day late and a dollar short" Funny thing I totally understand how you feel! must run in the jeans hey!