I have a dream...

In honor of MLK Day, I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, this little grave looking plot of land will be flourishing vegetable garden.

I have a deep abiding love of fresh vegetables. I remember, during the terrible horrible very bad no good year, that the hardest sacrifice for me was eating vegetables out of a can. A store can. A store brand can, the kind that’s really half water/half pastel whatsit. It was horrible but necessary since the cost of fresh (and often frozen) produce was out of the budget. I was never so thrilled as when dear friends would share vegetables from their gardens.

Since then, I have wanted desperately to be able to bless it back with vegetables from my own. Additionally, I don’t ever want to be caught in a veggieless situation again. I have learned the lesson of the recession.

There are two major impediments to my dream. The first would be my brown thumb. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive without major intervention from the husband, who travels all week, or my green- thumbed daughter, who is away at school. Oh, I long to be a Mrs. Greenjeans. I envision myself one, standing in the middle of my own Eden, basket cradled on the arm, bringing in the sheaves….In my vision, I’m usually wearing a big pretty hat… but to call that vision a fantasy is a gross understatement. This Christmas, while meandering through a garden center, I found adorable little pots of fresh rosemary sculpted into Christmas tree shapes. Since I also love fresh herbs, I snatched one up and  took it home, where it perched proudly it atop of my refrigerator, multitasking as Christmas decoration and culinary device.

Here it is.

 Quite the gardener I am. I grow my dried herbs right on the vine.

The second problem is that our small back lawn is mostly a piney Georgia stick forest. There is simply no spot of land back there sufficient to sun even a moderate garden.

So our solution is square foot gardening. Years ago, before we moved to this house, we (that would be mostly “he”) had real success with square foot gardens, and we intend to try again. So the husband spent a rainy Saturday turning the earth in various spots along the edge of the driveway and near the piney woods. Then he purchased the lumber for the frames, and he cut the wood, and he crafted the little boundaries. Today, he will haul barn dirt from my sister’s farm.

So far, my contribution has been to snap a picture. For some odd reason, he likes it that way.

Happy Gardening!