Existential Lessons from my First Garden
Today marks the end of my first season of home horticulture, or what regular people call “gardening.” The vegetables now harvested, the herbs dried and stored, and seeds prepared for next year, I am eager to do this again in a few months!
Make no mistake about it; this first little collection of plants has changed me in ways I never expected. I figured we might have some good veggies and fresh herbs to couple with my newfound love of cooking. Looking back now, we have eaten like kings this year. Even better, there is an ample supply for the coming winter.
This whole experiment started when the missus and I moved into our house a year ago in the fall. She casually mentioned wanting sunflowers along the fence in the spring and maybe an herb or two in the garden area. Even though my ability to keep plants alive has been eternally suspect, we ended up with all of that PLUS squash, tomatoes, red beets, lettuce, cabbage, peas, and more.
We planted everything in the spring and waited eagerly for anything to show its face above ground. Once a bit of green broke through the soil, the “is that a weed or a (squash|tomato|beet| et al.)” debate began. (I must confess we probably sacrificed a few good plants in the pursuit of aggressive weed control.)
