I love to garden. I mean, I LOVE TO GARDEN. It combines all of my favorite things….quiet, food, creativity, good smells, pretties, health, wildlife, being a total control freak and lording over large patches of land.

My garden is huge. But that isn’t because I am a particularly good gardener. I am just embarrassingly committed and enthusiastic and not ashamed to invest ridiculous amounts of time and money into my garden. By Christmas, more likely than not, I have already drawn a map out of what and where I will be planting the following Spring. Seeds have already been purchased and/or saved. Some early bird plants will start in the greenhouse in February, and by mid March the greenhouse is jam packed with pots of seeds, getting ready to sprout. And then I spend all of May stalking the weather report and trying to outsmart various weather patterns that may or may not involved golf ball sized hail.

I am not the only one to have been lured in by the promise of a vine ripened heirloom tomato. And basil. And probably cilantro and jalapeno in case you want to make salsa. And what about a cucumber? Oh I love those skinny eggplants and they are harder to find in the stores. Chives make everything fancy. Kids love pumpkins. You can sneak zucchini into everything. Carrots. Carrots. Carrots. Potatoes. Carrots. Cabbage!

But no joke you guys, I have gone to another level. Celeriac? Parsnips? Abso-friggin-lutely. Will my kids love them? Not at all. Alas, here we are…..

And I don’t just grow food. I started out just growing flowers that serve as companion plants to my vegetables…sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias all bring our buddies the bees around. But so do chamomile, calendula, comfrey, yarrow, borage. And all of these plants have amazing benefits for our skin, as well. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Or at least, that is how my brain took this information.

So now my garden is something of a forest. I mean, it’s a friggin mess. But in a blog we call it a forest because that sounds better. But this messy forest feeds our bodies, nourishes our skin, and the pollinators dig it, big time. “Dig it”…..see what I did there?

We’re now getting to the time of year where it’s just starting to shift….the chamomile is over it, the squash vines are starting to wilt, letting me know that I will get to harvest soon. I just canned 14 pints of tomatillo salsa this weekend and we are eating tomatoes with every meal. This is supposed to be the pay off for all the hard work. But I kind of think that the work itself is the payoff. The anticipation. The hope. All of it. I just. love. all of it.

The garden - 2020