It’s the Spring thing

I am currently mad about growing plants. Fresh produce from my own garden would be so nice, and keeping ferns, growing perennial flowers and generally having a garden that is rewarding.

It sounds like a simple enough process. Collect appropriate planters or prepare the garden beds, ensure the soil is good with compost, mulch, and natural seaweed fertiliser, then plant away! Seeds, seedlings, and larger plants, depending on what’s available, what I want, and what suits the season. I know what I need to for keeping a garden, but I must admit, I’m really bad at it. The knowledge and theory is all there, but something I do in practice has ended in ruin every time.

I have killed dozens of plants, maybe even hundreds. Sometimes there’s a sad couple of cherry tomatoes harvested. I once managed to grow a horribly bitter and stunted carrot, and while totally thrilling to dig it up, it was a disappointment.

It would be easy to joke that instead of having a green thumb, I have the dead and crispy thumb of a failed garden. I can get self-sowing plants to go wild, and there are plenty of flowering bushes in the yard that do fine with absolutely no input from me (except the occasional watering when it’s dry out). Once it comes down to something that I should be involved in maintaining, there’s not much success.

This isn’t too off-putting to me. As the Spring Equinox approaches, I definitely feel the subtle call of nature to celebrate Ostara by planting and growing and tending the garden. I have enthusiasm that this time will be different, and the blueberry bushes with thrive and produce berries. At least this time, I don’t have chickens, as chickens love EVERY part of a blueberry bush (I swear they developed a taste for it).

I look ahead, hopeful that what I’m planting will survive. My ferns haven’t turned crispy yet, and my European Ash bonsai tree is looking ridiculously healthy! The strawberry plants have their first tiny strawberries on them, and the new mulberry tree is suddenly covered in long green berries! This is all a great sign. Maybe my mysterious gardening inability has passed and I will be able to fulfill all my planting urges.

~A