Picture Courtesy of Lynn Greyling at Public Domain Pictures
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=71091&picture=botanical-gardens-moscow
For years and years now I have gardened. I’ve always enjoyed
the feeling of dirt on my feet and hands. I love watching a magnificent plant
grow out of a tiny seed. I think it’s miraculous. My favorite things to garden
are the vegetables. It gives me great pleasure to tend to the plants, watch
them grow, and then reap the rewards of deliciousness.
When we lived in the Fort Wayne area we rented a house and
couldn’t have a garden there. I managed to find a couple of community gardens
where I planted and maintained a nice little crop. It wasn’t the best of
circumstances, for sure, since I had to drive to get to them. It’s not like
being able to step out your door and gather up some fresh herbs and veggies for
the day’s meals. Things had to be planned, the weather had to cooperate, and
that general sense of contentment wasn’t quite as strong. It did, however,
deliver and I enjoyed it none-the-less.
Now that I have a home I can call my own, again I long to
grow a new garden. There’s just one thing standing in the way, a serious lack
of sunshine. If you’re a gardener then you know that vegetables require six to
eight hours of direct sunlight each day. That means there needs to be a place
in my small yard where the sun always shines. Alas, there is no such space. It’s
unfortunate, yes, but not the end of all ends.
I plan to get a few five gallon buckets and, at the very
least, plant a couple of tomato plants and perhaps a pepper plant. Certainly
this is not comparable to the mounds of succulent summer squash, green beans,
and cucumbers that I adore but it’s better than none at all. I figure I’ll be
able to move the three plants easily enough and re-positioning them throughout
the day should give them adequate sunlight. I shall wait and see.
There are other alternatives. Where there’s a will there’s a
way. I know that I can certainly still garden. There are an abundance of shade
and partial shade loving plants out there. Many of them are quite beautiful,
and I don’t just mean hostas and ferns, although those are nice. I can think of
Begonias, Coleus, Geraniums, and Impatiens off the top of my head. All of those
will provide gorgeous color and texture. I’m certain there are tons more, so I
will need to change the focus of my garden. That’s a very familiar life scenario
for me and probably for you too. We need to learn to adapt to change; we need
to be able to make something good out of a less than perfect situation.
Personally, I know of no other way to live. How else can life remain good? I
think that if your life isn’t good, then maybe you should be asking yourself if
it’s time to change the way you garden. A person needs to work with what they
have and be able to find satisfaction in it or else they’ll wither and die,
much like a plant without its proper sun requirement. It’s seriously not a good
thing. Life happens, we don’t always get our patch of sunshine but that
shouldn’t keep us from blooming.
For now, my garden will be one of shade loving annuals and
perennials. I will till the earth, plant the seed, and tend to it while it
grows and becomes the beautiful plant it was meant to be. I may be able to
squeeze out a tomato or two, I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but either way I’ll
still be gardening and I’ll put my brain to work and set myself up a challenge
to devise a way to harness that much craved sunshine. How about you? What will
you grow?
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