October is just about over and it seems like rather than counting the number of seedlings fighting to sprout I’m counting the days until the next election.
It’s not that I’m not excited about the garden, it’s just the amount of time that I had to dedicate to creating my garden beds before even beginning to buy the soil and buying the seeds and, yes, of course, planting those seeds to become my beautiful garden! There’s also the issue of heat. Really, up until the last week Arizona has been hot! Hot! Hot! We’re finally hitting only double-digit temperatures as a high and I’m able to open up windows in the morning. Not to mention, the Mr. and I have just adopted to very rambunctious kittens.
So what does this mean for the garden at The Green Hearth?
Frankly, more time.
Time can be a good thing, then again, it can also be a bad thing. You see by having more time, I can really plan out what I want my garden to look like and how I want to interact with it. On the flip side, having more time means more opportunity to change my mind about things. I had a plan for my garden would start at my dividing wall between our house and our neighbors. But, upon hearing other gardeners talk about the radiant heat of those cinder blocks, this may actually change my methodology and how I’m going to lay out the garden itself.
So, it seems like I’m back to the drawing board.
A raised garden is still completely on the table and my main goal for the backyard space. But, I may have to re-look at the space that I have where my garden is going to be growing and truly plan out a long-term grid of my garden beds. I had to think now, what’s going to happen between my raised garden bed, in the space between that and my cinder block wall between me and my neighbor? What about the ground covering between the raised garden beds? I have Rock right now. But frankly, I get quite a few weeds that sprout through the rocks and they are quite a pain to pull out every time I have to do yard work.
If all this doesn’t seem tedious enough, as far as the timing goes, the planning and a long-term commitment to the item as my priority at this point, it’s cost. I realize the long-term benefits of growing your own garden outweigh the upfront cost; and that’s exactly what I’m going for! But, we are in a pandemic, and we did have quite a few renovations in the house that took up quite a bit of funds these past few months.
So, now is the time. Now I can take my measurements for my garden space area (again), place it into my program, and really think about what I want this garden to look like. I know this will be a long journey, and I’ll have to take it step-by-step. month by month, as long as it takes. But if I can bring in my methodology that I do every day at work, where I think implant out and consider every option prior to just jumping into something, I know I will be happy with the end result.
I realize I have two months left before the end of the year. And that means, the end of my 2020 resolution related to my gardening. But this has been quite a different year. For many reasons. And I’ve already determined, that I want this resolution to continue into next year. I want a garden, and I want a thriving one! So, although we’ll be revisiting the resolutions I’ve dedicated to the green hearth for 2020, maintaining my garden will surely be one that continues!