Grow Something

I planted the colors green, yellow, red and orange.
The kids call my favorite eats "mom's tropical food."

Welcome to my vegetable garden!

As you may know, we live on one full acre. To Bob it's "a farm," a compensation from living 46 years in the inner city*. To me it's "another job," an overwhelming sensation from having very little liquid time. With all this land, you'd think we'd have planted a garden a long time ago but I didn't know where to start.

However, I found a solution.

It's "live globally, act apartmently." I ask myself what would I do if I lived in a little space. Suddenly things become very clear. I need to plant a container garden because that's what you would do if you didn't have a yard. (Note: in the background of this picture is the St. John's Faith Garden, an impressive expanse, which has been a nice proxy gardening experience. Yet, I still wanted my own kitchen garden.)

This is how we did it.


So I walked around to see what could be recycled for containers. I scanned the garage, the other garage, the pool house, the basement, the kitchen, the bedrooms the yard -- all while pretending I was planning for an apartment. I came up with a pretty good collection of pots.

Bob helped me buy dirt, which seems strange when you live on an acre of land because we have quite a bit of our own dirt, but remember we are "acting apartmently." And wala, here is our kitchen garden. Kale, tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, spinach, basil and rosemary. A mixture of color of texture.

Why the wagon?

Because I can't decide where to put my container garden (you see, the choices overwhelm me). The beauty of a garden on wheels is I can experiment with different locations and change according to what's going on. For example, during the week when I'm hardly at home, I'd wheel it close to the watering spot in the sun, to keep as low maintenance as possible. On the weekends I might want to move it to, say, my back yard camp spot. When the leaves fill out on the big trees, there will likely be different sun spots. I need a garden that's flexible. A garden on wheels is the best of both worlds: growing roots while expecting change. (I'm one of the five percent of the population who shrivels up when things remain the same.) (I up made that statistic.)

Even I find it funny, though, when I'm moving the wagon because it looks like I'm taking my garden for a walk. I feel like a kid in a pretend world. I'm Mary Poppins or Little Red Riding Hood. As merry as this sounds, there is a problem as you can see in the picture. The wagon isnt' big enough. (Apparently I am thinking a pretty large apartment.) I asked Bob to get me one of those extenders that we would've needed had we a third child, to comfortably fit all my pots. (It's not lost on me that I used to haul around my kids in this wagon.)

You all probably knew this, but I've discovered that planting is a good antidote for depression. Growing things is the opposite of depression. I've been searching for a mantra to quiet the noise in my head but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound dumb to me. But lately "grow things" has been working in my cacophonous brain. It's direct and present and simple. Grow things. Grow things. Grow things. Grow everything you can. Grow all that is around you.When you're shrinking up inside, grow something. If you've lost something, grow something. If all else fails, grow something. If you can't grow anything, grow yourself and vice versa.

Easy for me to say. It's sunny, its spring, and its the weekend. Today its simple to grow things. Tomorrow is Monday and it will be different. Still, I'm going to repeat over and over the mantra "grow things."

Thanks for coming over to my blog. Wishing you all a lovely spring.

With love from yours truly,

Natural Born Bleeding Heart

*Note on the verbiage, inner city: I realize that friends and family from New York will probably not appreciate the characterization of Sunset Park, Brooklyn as "inner city," which could have a negative connotation. I love Sunset Park and do not intent to portray it as a less desirable place to live. It has a special character all its own that maintains the purest form of a neighborhood in New York City, I think. I'd call it NYC's best kept secret. The reason I use the phrase here is for the benefit of my midwestern friends and family, to emphasize the density of urban living from which Bob comes. I am hoping to emphasize the contrast between the acre of land Bob chose now, as a response to the compact homes and yards from where he came. Probably an over explanation, but I had a late thought that I might have offended people, and I don't mean to do that. We all hold affinities to where we live and my own loyalties are for all. Cheers!