Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Gardening in whatever space we may have

It's been 6 months since my last post, on New Year's Eve. That post wasn't intended to be my last, but as time went on it seemed like a good way to end my blog. In that post I made a resolution to find a garden. A lot has happened since then, but I'm happy to say that I've found a temporary garden and today, as I planted the last of my veggies, I felt a happiness that only gardening can bring.

The last 6 months have been transformative (sometimes traumatic).

My dad died in late January.

Our newly adopted dog got sick again in February and needed medication for a month. Meanwhile Chris turned 50 and I started a mid-life crisis for him.

In March we sold my house in the woods. The one I had to leave when the recession started and I couldn't afford it. I'd tried to sell it two different times with no luck. An acquaintance came out of the blue wanting a rental for tax purposes and I happily sold it.

Then in April we found a house (with a yard) to rent. Not easy finding a decent house that accepts pets. We signed the contract and would have keys by early May.  Then the moving started and did not end for 6 weeks. Visualize moving from a 3 story townhouse into a 2 story house. I was not physically or mentally prepared for this - and it was my idea.

Finally, in April we had to euthanize my cat, Kabrina, who had been sick for some time. She has been featured in my blog, eating cucumber leaves, supervising plantings etc. She was a good girl - sometimes and I miss her.

During all those months of not blogging and not taking many photos I realized a couple of things:

I like watching a You Tube video more than reading a DIY tutorial in a blog. Learned this last fall when watching 'how to make paper flowers' videos sent by a friend.

I also realized that I missed taking photos, had neglected my Flickr page, and in general had become tired of taking photos only of plants. One of my mid-life topics is to go back to manual photography that I learned as a kid and re-learn it as an adult.

Now, I have been active on my All-Purpose Flower Facebook page, and occasionally on Pinterest. Both were created to tie-in to my blog. I follow so many cool plant sites on both that I'm not going to stop now.

My current garden:




The garden I have today is the result of seeing great ideas on Facebook. I had seen an MBrace raised bed once before, and thought this was a cool idea. I saw them again just before our move into a rental and ordered mine. They send the braces and you buy the lumber sized to suit. This is an easy way for me to set up a raised bed in a temporary location. When we move out we can remove the braces and our lumber leaving some good soil behind.

We are still looking for our "forever home" and garden space ranks high on the priority list, it just may not include a huge plot and a rototiller as I once thought. For now I still have my patio containers and a new raised bed full of veggies, resolution accomplished.



The End.

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