All of a sudden little gardens inspired by my constant garden chatter are planned all around me. First to actually put her hands in the dirt and plant something is my good friend Millie Jackson. While the grounds surrounding her home are vast, we agreed that starting small would be best. Since her Aunt Shirley already had a little place on the side of the house ready, we started there. On day one, we worked to prepare the area. Millie pointed out tea plants that Aunt Shirley was growing under cover of a nearby bush so that we would be sure not to disturb them. There were other tiny green things growing amongst the weeds which we weren't sure about but pulled up since Aunt Shirley hadn't mentioned planting anything other than tea.
With very little time available, we headed over to a local garden center. Once we parked, I was easily distracted by everything from the orange Adirondack chairs I've been stalking on line to teal glazed pots. Millie quickly got me back on track and focused on selecting plants for her garden. We walked back and forth through the vegetable aisles reading labels while trying to determine which plants to buy and how many. In the end, we settled on cherry tomatoes, squash, zucchini, red peppers (purchasing one plant each) and one packet of spinach seeds. For a bit of natural pest control, we also added in basil and marigolds.
On planting day, we mixed two bags of compost into the soil and also spread bone meal in the top layer for added nutrients. We positioned the potted plants first and after agreeing that we liked the location, dug right in, quickly planting and sowing the seeds. When we were just about finished, we discovered two little pods that were possibly Lima beans. Puzzled, we started to wonder if Aunt Shirley had already planted something in this little space. Millie feeling sure that Aunt Shirley hadn't planted anything but also perplexed about the pods went in the house to ask. She came out with that "uh oh we're in trouble" look. It turns out that those little green things we dug up were collard greens AND the pod was a bean AND Aunt Shirley had in fact thrown some seeds into that space at some unknown point. Aunt Shirley's response to our planting a garden over her existing garden went something like "y'all are not gardeners and don't know the first thing about gardening.... you don't even know what a garden looks like". She then proceeded to bring out a bottle of wine and instruct us to take a few drinks so we could have an excuse for this snafu. Thankfully she was laughing and shaking her head the entire time!
I'll be visiting Millie within the next month or so and look forward to seeing her garden's progress. I hope to find bees bouncing happily between squash flowers, smell the strong fragrance of vibrant marigolds and sample sweet, bright red, cherry tomatoes. I'm also expecting to see new green things surfacing in random places due to a slight disturbance by two ladies who know nothing about gardening but everything about friendship.
I hope that the story of Millie's garden along with the ups and downs occurring in my own backyard will inspire you to grow something (if you don't already). Gardening has shown me what can be accomplished when desire, patience, observation and love are mixed in with good soil, sunshine and rain.
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