Our Little Spot of Earth

As a child I hated gardening. My family always had a huge garden with a million different things growing in it. And that garden required work. Lots of work. I vividly remember being hunched over in the hot sun, working up and down long rows of string beans or peas, weeding or harvesting. It didn't matter which--I hated them both the same. Of course I loved eating from the garden, just not working in it.

I never thought I would learn to appreciate or enjoy the satisfaction that comes from gardening. But I'm now tasting that appreciation, satisfaction, and yes, even joy.

In our miniature yard (emphasis on the miniature), we've carved out a very tiny bit of space for our first "real" garden this year. We planted peas, cucumbers, carrots, corn (that Seth brought home from school), strawberries, blueberries, 3 varieties of tomatoes, and red and green bell peppers. Many of these we planted from seed. Over the past couple of months, we (the amateur gardeners that we are) have actually kept everything alive, and have even begun to harvest actual and edible fruits and vegetables from our garden. It has been an admittedly meager harvest so far, but still, we put seeds in the ground, and they have grown and are actually producing! What an amazing feeling!

One of the best things we've reaped from our little garden is the excitement and involvement of our whole family. Seth in particular must monitor the garden's progress at least daily and inform us of any and all changes. Last Saturday I awoke to find him getting dressed. I was so confused and disoriented (this is highly abnormal for him to get dressed without being asked) that it took me a while to understand what was happening. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was going out to pick the peas. What?!? I don't remember EVER waking up on a Saturday morning eager to get out and work in the garden when I was young. But then again, our little garden here isn't nearly as overwhelming as the one I faced as a child. Maybe that's the difference. In any case, Seth went right to work harvesting our first peas. It was great. The other day Chris watched Annie pick a pea pod off the vine and then eat it. And it's fun to listen to the boys excitedly talk to each other about the garden's progress.

We are all learning together as we go along, and I'm sure we're making a lot of mistakes in the process. But that's part of the growth. It has been such a fun and rewarding family project for so many reasons, and we wonder what took us so long to do this. These are times when I feel like we're not only growing peas, carrots, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, corn, and cucumbers, but that we're really growing a family.