I’m not a particularly good gardener. But I am a stubborn one.
For vegetable gardens, you’re supposed to have full sun. My backyard? More than 50% sun, but less than 75% if I had my guess. My soil make-up? Good question. Every year I tell myself I’m going to use a soil test and every year I wait until it’s too late. The past two years my sugar snaps only gave a whisper of a harvest, and I’ve never had an issue with sugar snaps before. They’ve always been my golden child.
I do have a few things going for my garden. My boyfriend is handy. With his help, and a few hours standing in a local organic gardening store, we built an irrigation system for my backyard garden. It’s more consistent at watering than any human. At least until the batteries in the timer die but that usually gets noticed pretty quickly.
A few years ago I began seed starting heirloom plants. It’s been grow and wilt, the gardening version of hit and miss. I’ve mostly grown some leggy seeds who valiantly produced. Last year I tried to up my seed starting game, buying the nicer self-irrigation tray from Home Depot and a new grow light.
My peppers were pumped. Until they grew straight into the grow light. Then they were a little crispy. Despite flying too close to the sun, my pepper starts were a success and contributed tons of adorable baby peppers to my backyard garden.
But my watermelon starts, my poor poor watermelon starts. Despite checking the self-irrigation tray consistently, when the summer heat started the water evaporated in an instance. And I didn’t notice. Because I expected it to follow the same timeline it had all spring. So my hopeful little watermelon babies, saved from our best plant last year, withered and died in a self-irrigating desert. Already a little behind, I threw some more seeds in the dirt, filled up the water and started anew. Like I said, stubborn.
This year I’m adding an extra light and heated mats to keep my seeds cozy. I’m hoping to solve my problems in their infancy and hit spring with strong, solid babies that’ll finally give me the food oasis I’ve always dreamed of.
With a tiny yard, not enough sunlight and borderline incompetence why do I keep gardening?
Because nothing on this earth tastes better than an heirloom Cherokee Purple tomato still warm from the sunshine. Nothing.
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