The Fun of Starting Over

I came home from a Food Bank Board Meeting tonight to find my driveway vegetable garden stripped of my spent winter vegetables and all the weeds that had recently taken over during this early warm spell.  It was not a surprise since I had hired my friend Renee’s nephew Bobby to do the backbreaking work, but our agreement as to when the work would get done was lose.  I was hopeful that it would be done by the weekend so to have it done today was a bonus.

I must have known in my heart that Bobby would come today because before I went to Raleigh my friend Thecky stole her husband’s pick up truck and we went to the Rock Shop to buy a bed full of certified organic compost.  I have no idea what it is certified to do, but I do know that my garden last year had the best yield of any vegetable garden I had ever grown so I was sticking to the same formula.

Surely Thecky had no idea how much work it was going to be to shovel all the compost out of the truck since it only took a minute for them to dump it in with a backhoe.  Washing the truck out of all the “certified” evidence took as long as driving to buy it did.  I can’t wait to bring Thecky and her husband some homegrown cucumbers and peppers as a thank you for the black gold compost.

Now that I have a cleared vegetable bed and a three-foot high pile of chicken poop mixed with dead leaves I am ready to start my summer garden.  I have no idea exactly what I am going to grow until I go to the farmer’s market and the local seed-feed store to see what plants catch my eye.

Once I started plants from seed, but found that it was way too much work with disappointing results.  For most of the seventeen years I have had this garden I have not planned exactly what I grow or where it goes in the garden.  I know it would be better to plan my beds and keep track of what grows well and what fails, but that would make it too much work.  Instead I like to pursue different seedling vendors and buy a smattering of varieties.

I know I will grow arugula, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, both hot and sweet, basil and various summer squash.  I have trouble with tomatoes, although last year I was able to get a few so I might try again.  I have tried cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, pumpkins and watermelon with varying degrees of success.  I just am not sure until I start shopping.

For me the fun in planting this garden every spring is that although it is many years old it is new again every spring.  I don’t have to relive past mistakes, I get to start over fresh.  Nothing is more beautiful than the freshly tilled black soil with dozens of little plants, put neatly in rows with not a weed in sight.  It does not stay that way all summer as I tire of weeding or come home from a week away to find that some unwelcome animal has visited.

Even with the heartaches that can come from gardening it is always more exciting to eat a zucchini I grew than one I bought.  And if come August the garden is a huge mess I will just rip it out and start over again with the winter vegetables.  It’s the one thing that is fun to start over again.