I have tried to grow things on my patios before. Just after we got married, my sweet mother-in-law sent me a dwarf lemon tree. Oh, how I love lemons! I was so excited to put it out back and reap some deliciousness. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I thought maybe the front patio would be better for growing vegetation. I bought a tomato plant (my true summer love), and tried my hardest to not kill it. The few that did grow were attacked by pests. Not enough sun and too much water, I was told. I tried flowers, too. That didn’t happen either.
My husband, Nathan, and I dream of having a house with a yard. Well, I probably dream about it a little more than he does. (I blame it on HGTV!) We’ve talked many times about how having a yard to grow some vegetables and fruit trees would be amazing, but living in Southern California means a house is not in our near future.
So what’s an apartment-dwelling girl to do when she dreams of delicious summer veggies? Mooch off Mom and Dad!
I am so blessed to have my parents a mere ten minutes away. Plus their neighbors let me take lemons off their tree. Pure heaven! My dad has done vegetable gardens before, but it never occurred to me to use their yard for my benefit. A few weeks ago, my dad mentioned he was thinking about another garden this summer and asked if there was anything in particular Nathan and I wanted. Have you ever seen “Despicable Me”? Liiightbulb! Why not carve out a place for myself in my parent’s garden? Dang, I’m a genius sometimes! My parents graciously agreed to let me have some space in their garden and I immediately went into full planning mode.
If you know me, I’m a girl who LOVES a plan. I almost always have a plan…sometimes I even have plans for my plan. I also have a deep obsession with doing everything right the first time, and oh, how the thought of failing keeps me up at times! I’m a perfectionistic planner. Not a winning combination if you’re looking for a good time on a Saturday night, but helpful if you’d like to know what to do two weeks from now. I digress…
I went home and hopped on the internet because I was going to learn everything I could about gardening in one day! Yes, I’m a little loony, too. My first stop was to Sunset.com. Was that ever an eye opener! There are agricultural zones and then zones within zones. There are a plethora of different kinds of soils and seeds. Some seeds needed to be started indoors and then transferred; others could be purchased as seedlings and immediately transferred into the ground. Certain plants needed certain soils. Some had to be fed more than others. Some vegetables won’t even grow in SoCal and if you try to grow them YOU WILL DIE FROM FRUSTRATION!
At this point I started to reach for my prescription of Xanex.
What on earth was I getting myself into? I decided I needed some more information, so I headed to Barnes & Noble to look at some gardening magazines. I was amazed at how many publications are devoted to gardening! They had some for living-in-the-country gardening and rooftop gardening, gardening in random vessels from a junk yard. Somehow this made me feel better and like I wasn’t a total idiot for thinking I could do this.
I picked up a magazine that had an article about mistakes first-time gardeners make. Sold! If I’m going to do this, you’d better believe I’m not making any mistakes.
So I took my shiny magazine and sat outside in the beautiful, spring weather. As I flipped through the pages, my mouth began to water at the pictures of sweet tomatoes, crisp lettuce, and juicy corn. Oh yeah…my summer garden is going to be awesome!
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