Besides raising safety concerns for ourselves and others, hurricane Ike ruined Justice’s and my plans for a special date night yesterday. With posts on gardening and its wonderful fruits flooding the blogosphere lately, my increasing interest in eating seasonally (spawned by the farmers’ markets), my mother-in-law’s recent success growing just a handful of spinach plants, and rising grocery costs, I finally had the thought the other day, You know, maybe I’ll plant some tomatoes next year. I like tomatoes, you see, and the ones at the grocery store are awful, while those at the farmers’ market are expensive. This isn’t a completely new concept. Justice and I have both talked about starting a garden, but the conversations so far have been pretty abstract. This was the first time I felt a real desire to do something. I think I’m settling more into nesting mode as I approach graduation. Domesticity is starting to sound really good these days.
This thought then led to another one a few days later, Why wait until next spring to plant something? I had a point. Dark, leafy greens and lettuces grow all fall and winter here, and they’re some of my favorite vegetables. In fact, as much as I love cucumbers, I prefer the winter farmers’ markets to the summer ones. And my grandpa, who is a fantastic gardener by the way (oh, for his peaches, peas, onions, and tomatoes!), says that kale tastes better after the weather gets cold. I quickly performed a Google search on “Houston fall gardening” and came up with lots of great information. Apparently, September is not too late for greens and lettuces. Hurrah!
But since I know approximately, oh, nothing about gardening, I scoured the Urban Harvest website for information. (Urban Harvest is a local non-profit organization devoted to educating the public about organic gardening, supporting school and community gardens, and sponsoring the Bayou City Farmers’ Market, which I think is the best one in Houston.) Lo and behold, they were offering a beginner’s class on home fruit and vegetable gardening in only two days! I eagerly called, bought a membership for a very reasonable fee, and registered myself and my husband for the class. We used some money that we had set aside for our anniversary for the purchase. We wondered what could be a better gift to ourselves for our anniversary than investing in a new hobby for the two of us to enjoy together?
I have to be realistic about this, of course. My childhood gardening attempts failed miserably, and as much as I love the idea of gardening, I haven’t generally enjoyed the reality in the past. However, I love to research, plan, and coordinate; I think gardening makes all the sense in the world; and I adore cooking with fresh ingredients. Plus, I’m trying to keep an open mind. My husband, as it turns out, hates research and planning but really enjoys working with his hands outside. I think we might make a good team for gardening success. Who knows? We’ll start small this year and work our way up if all goes well.
For the moment, I’m most excited about the opportunity to spend time learning something new together. Learning together thrills me because it always produces the best conversations! I enjoy my husband so much. Yes, I think this will be a fun little adventure for our marriage. Maybe it will grow into a life-long hobby we’ll enjoy for the next fifty years together. Or maybe in fifty years we’ll look back, shake our heads in amazement, say, “What were we thinking?!”, and tell our grandchildren all about our young folly. Either way, I think gardening is bound to produce memories we’ll treasure.
Hurricane Ike will pass soon, and then Urban Harvest will reschedule the class. I look forward to sharing our experiences here.
What do you think of gardening? Have you always loved it, or was it an acquired taste? How did you learn about it? From your parents? Classes? Books? Do you have any tips for newbies?
(This post is a part of Frugal Friday, a blog carnival at Biblical Womanhood.)
Good luck with the garden! I have been growing a small garden for about 2 years, but this year it was pitifully neglected! For the first two months of my pregnancy, I had no energy for anything, let alone going out in the hot sun to weed and tend the garden. I had a pretty good bunch of tomatoes going despite my laziness, but just as they started to turn color, the chickens escaped and ate every single one of them! sigh. I am hoping next year goes better!
Up until this spring, I had firmly and dogmatically told my husband that I would never garden. My family tried it growing up, and we had the most awful black thumbs. This spring I told him we would never have a garden.
Then, this summer the bug hit me and we have a garden.
It is pretty pitiful, being on an apartment patio that doesn’t get much sun, but I figure it is an investment in knowledge. If I experiment now in small quantities, perhaps I’ll have a green thumb when we get into a house and can harvest big quantities. So far this year we’ve only gotten half a dozen tiny cherry tomatoes and some basil leaves. Despite that, I think I’m addicted.
Good luck with the garden! I’d love to have one. Unfortunately where we live we can’t plant a vegetable/fruit garden unless in containers, which I’m seriously thinking of doing. Have a great Frugal Friday!
Good luck to you both! A book that helped me greatly when I was starting out was Square Foot Gardening. I managed to grow quite a lot in a 4×4 ft raised bed, even late into the fall in Wisconsin. Twenty+ years on, I’ve discovered the new edition of the book and it makes things even simpler.
jodean,
Oh, how sad! Then again, how cool is it that you have chickens??? I look forward to hearing about your first eggs.
lizzykristine,
It sounds like we have similar histories. I think I, too, got the bug from modest success with potted herbs. Our basil, rosemary, and oregano have done well this year after we figured out a few things we did wrong last year. I’ve been so spoiled having fresh herbs all summer. It makes me not want to buy them at the grocery store anymore, which means I need a much bigger variety in my back yard next year!
Sherry,
Thanks! You know, my mother-in-law planted her spinach in containers and had quite a nice harvest, and I’ve had good results with herbs. It might be worth a shot.
Anne,
I read about that book somewhere else too. Now that I’ve heard it recommended twice, I think I’ll have to check it out. A 4×4 raised bed sounds just about like the scale we have in mind. Thanks for the tip! I wonder if my library has the book…
Being I live in MN the garden is put to rest. But I was thinking of planting some things in the house for salads. I have done a lot of canning this yr. so we will be set for awhile.
Oh, I’m so excited for you! You are going to love gardening!
I never really thought that I would be big into gardening, but the more that I became interested in natural foods (and the more the cost of groceries has gone up), it became the most obvious choice.
My first year was two years ago (we’ll skip the summer I attempted in Japan, where the scorching heat killed absolutely everything on my little patio container garden). I enjoyed it more than I imagined I would.
This year is my first really large scale garden (I’ve got 12 x 27 ft, plus a couple small pots) and I just adore it. I’ve fallen in love with gardening, and have even become passionate about it. Who knew?
I can’t wait to hear how you like it!
BarbaraLee,
How wonderful to enjoy your garden’s harvest all year! I’d like to try canning next summer if I can coax enough tomatoes out of our soil.
Stephanie,
It makes me feel so much better to hear others say that gardening wasn’t always a passion but that they love it now. Yes, gardening does seem like the obvious choice. I’ve just spent a while feeling really intimidated. I hope that by partnering with my husband and attending classes on it, the “scary” part will be removed, while all the fun of learning and working together will be enhanced. It’s been really exciting to watch your garden’s progress this year and see how much fruit it’s yielded for your family.