Not Too Shabby

I think it's fair to say that it's human nature to focus on the negative. And, gardening-wise, there's been quite a bit of negative in my, er, field of dreams lately. But I do not want to give you the impression that it's all going bad (or that I'm a total loser). There are things growing in my backyard garden, several things, and I thought that tonight maybe we could focus on those.

There in the red pots, those are the grape tomatoes potted in the Ikea $1 trash cans that I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. As you can see, they are thriving nicely, I've got them tied up to a stake so they can grow up. In the grey pot next to them I seeded basil, and although too tiny to see in this photo, they are popping up, and very green and leafy. In the light grey squarish pot behind that is my aloe vera, which took a beating from that gushing rain we had for three weeks. The whole plant turned this kind of sickly pink color, which I was positive was not a color aloe vera should be, but now it's been consistently warm and sunny outside and warmer at night, and the Pepto-Bismol aloe vera is slowly fading to something quite lovely and bright green.

On the little black table are succulents that are doing great, and I've got no names for them, so I'll call them Sprouty, Spiky, and Bulbous. They are amazing colors of neon purplish-pink, neon orange, and deep deep forest green.

And, on the other side of the smart red chairs, more things are growing. I'll show you a slightly more close-up view, so you can see the details:

In the grey pot, that's another Spiky, then back there in the white pots are the bluebonnets, and the terracotta pots hold, left to right, the Tatsoi and Italian dandelion, leafy green lettuce and mesclun mix. They all look to be green and thriving, don't they? I even ate some of the lettuces tonight, and they were tart and peppery and delicious just as I imagined them to be (never mind I bought them nearly that large at the gardening store last week; I think it's important to note, since we're being positive, that, although I didn't grow them, I haven't killed them, either. baby steps).

See? I'm not a loser. I'm not a loser. I'm a gardener.

Say it with me:

I'm a gardener.

I grow things.

I talk to plants.

Birds sit on my shoulder and I sing to them.

I make food from my own hands.

Ah, well. I don't know if I'm a gardener, but I sure am giving it everything I've got. I guess at some point, you've got to just let the sun shine down and see what happens.

Comments

[jess]

funny. i would like to say i giggled but it sounded more like a gurgle since i'm reading this in the same room as my sleeping child...and yes we ARE gardeners ;)