Gardening

Gardening is a touchy subject for me.  Touchy in that I get just a "touch" defensive when my skills, or rather lack of skills, has been called into question.  I love gardening, or at least the idea of it anyway. 

I remember when I was about twenty-two I knew how to kill any green living thing.  I then thought that if I tended toward the cactus family I would be safe.  Unfortunately, my zeal for making sure those beautiful, easy, "can't-kill-them" plants was soon put to rest when, after a mere two months, they too died.  What is it with me?  Not only did I NOT have a green thumb, mine was turning out to be black!

Well, I was determined.  I was going to make a go of this gardening thing whether it was just a few indoor plants or something outside in the jungle I fondly called a yard.  I was given a few indoor plants and by some miracle of the Lord (I really believe He was showing way more mercy than I deserved!) they not only didn't die, they did pretty well!

OK...Now the test would come.  Can I handle outdoor plants?  I was given a few perennials (which I later learned was another name for plants which were supposed to live forever) and I was tickled pink!  Good thing the flowers were pink peonies!  Those have since become one of my very favorite flowers.  They didn't do very well the first few years, but they didn't die either and I was grateful.

Now I wanted to try my hand at something I could eat - something I knew how to do with ease!  But unfortunately I didn't have the proper conditions - at least that's MY story!  I was told by some "Debby-Downers" that I wasn't capable of making a garden work, and they pretty much did everything in their power to ensure that it failed, to include placing my garden spot in the shade and then told me I needed to make it work or else I wasn't a very good gardener.

Well, I tended my garden and did my best, but it failed.  I was discouraged, to say the least.  But a few years later I tried again. 

The results of that garden, and why I even chose this subject to write about to begin with, will be in future blogposts.