Since moving into our rental in 2021, I’ve been wanting to start a little garden in the yard for my mom and I, and as soon as it hit May, ready or not, I made sure to follow through with my intentions. With a few bags of soil, a variety of flower and vegetable seeds, a shovel, cultivator, and gloves (of which already has holes), I got my hands dirty and began my gardening journey.
And oh my goodness has it been a journey — it’s only been a few weeks if you count the seeds I planted indoors at the end of April, but I’m already seeing some of the perennial flowers sprout. The joy of seeing something grow from a small seed into a stem with leaves is so satisfying. Talking to local nursery owners for the paper’s recent Home and Garden section also gave me the motivation to get in there and start. Hearing the stories of how much peace gardening brought into these people’s days sounded wonderful, and I can now confirm it. Every day, unless there’s been rain, I can now be found outside after work watering my plants or pulling weeds — tending to the soil is sort of like a meditation if you think about it. It reminds you of just how alive everything is especially during this season, and how important it is to care for the land and your surroundings, yourself included.
As of this week, I’ve planted over a dozen different plants, from ranunculus, gladiolas, sunfl owers, and zinnia, to tomatoes, lavender, peppers, and cucumber. Plant Masters in Suttons Bay had an amazing selection of flowers available during its spring perennial sale, and I made sure to grab a peony plant that I’m most likely going to put into the ground this week now that we’re half way through May. It’s supposed to start blooming in July, I can’t wait to see what also decides to pop out then.
Like so many tasks in life, starting was the hardest part. There’s books, websites, and magazines filled with endless gardening information and tutorials, and for a first time gardener, it can be overwhelming deciding where to begin. While my start meant buying a few packets of seeds I have always wanted to try growing, I definitely want to have a more planned garden plot next year. At this moment though, I’m just grateful to have seeds in the ground by May.
I’ll never forget being given my first bunch of home-grown vegetables from my former coworker and fellow writer/friend, the late Crystal Nelson, when I worked at “The Alpena News.” Her love for working in the garden was contagious in the best way. Our desks weren’t far from each other in the newsroom, and we often talked about food or the hobbies we were into at the time. I loved hearing about what vegetables her and her mom were sowing. I couldn’t believe it when she came to work one day and actually gave me a bag full of beautiful and vibrant yellow and purple colored potatoes from her garden. She always encouraged me to start planting, and I think of her and her passion for gardening when I’m tending to my own flowers and vegetables. I hope to someday grow an abundance of vegetables like she did that I can give to a friend, too.
There’s no doubt that a garden or the act of gardening can change you for the better, a message that I feel resonates with a memorable quote from the classic book “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
