inspired

Our friends, Todd & Mairin, invited us for a barbeque last 4th of July. Aside from the fact that we had a lovely time, ate delicious food, met some really great people, and watched fireworks, I was totally Wowed by their garden. They are foodies and I loved their approach to the garden: grow what you love to cook. I realize this isn't a novel idea. But, at the time, it spoke to me and inspired me. I also thought that if they could do it, then so could I.

So, this Spring when I got the gardening bug, Mairin came over to check out my space and give me some pointers. She brought her gardening notebook with notes from previous years and what they were planting this year. She loaned me Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte and You Grow Girl by Gayla Trail. I read them both that night, started my own notebook, and decided that I was going to have the most amazing garden.

The next day, I spent an hour at Barnes and Noble. In the olden days, I would have spent a small fortune restocking my personal gardening book collection.  Instead, I made a list of all the books I wanted to buy then came home and reserved them all at the library. I've been back and forth to the library several times and have read at least 15 books in the past month.

I made a list of the vegetables and herbs I wanted to grow, sketched out an idea, and started making notes about each plant as I read.

My Initial Garden Layout

On Saturday, April 23rd, we had our first beautiful, sunny day of the year. I didn't want the inspiration to pass as it had in previous years. So, I creaked open the garage hoping to find a shovel and a rake. To my surprise, I found a plethora of gardening tools of all shapes and sizes, most of which I didn't know their name or specific use. I'm not entirely sure where these came from because not only have we never gardened but we've always had our yard "done." I suspect the tools were left by the previous owners 10 years ago.

Feeling slightly overwhelmed by the jumbled mess, I pulled out a tool that looked useful for marking or tracing out a garden bed but the wheel part wouldn't move. Dylan was with me looking for treasure in the garage so I sent him inside to grab the vegetable oil. He thought this was hilarious and asked more than once if I knew what I was doing. Obviously not, but it was the first thing that came to mind. He stood by cracking up while I "oiled" the wheel but it actually worked to help get things moving.

So, I started marking out the beds and getting my hands dirty.