The Fantasy Garden

I have always wanted a vegetable garden.

OK, well, not ALWAYS… but since I’ve owned a home, at least.

I tried having one once, but it was on a hill, which was, in retrospect, silly.  I think I got a single yellow squash outta that little experiment.

I tried having ornamental / flower gardens.  Those lasted a couple of years.  But MAN, do you know how often you have to go pull weeds out of those things to keep them looking nice?  That lasted about two years before I declared I wanted to pull them out.

The SB said he likes how they look all weedy and stuff, so I turned over all responsibility to him and said that the only further work I was willing to put into them would be to dig them up and remove them.

So we have ornamental patches of weeds at the ends of the driveways.  It’s not as bad as it sounds… since some of the pretty plants are perennials and kinda show up in the spring to make the weeds look pretty and festive.

But… still… I have this fantasy that I could grow my own food.

And it pops up every year about this time.

I start thinking… hey… I could grow vegetables.. .that would be awesome!  Eating the fruits of my own labors!  Wow!

I suspect that once I am retired (17 more years!  Woot!) I could actually sustain this kind of project.  My main issue with weeding, etc isn’t the actual work… it’s that, hey!  I only get two days a week where I can do things I want to do, and these stupid weeds want to take an hour of that?  What?

But if I had no 40 hour a week job, well I think that would be much more palatable.

So maybe this is a fantasy that should be delayed.

But the yearning still comes every spring.

So I thought, well, maybe this year I could grow one thing.

Just one thing.

Get a largeish bucket of dirt, and grow something in it.

I mean… we do manage to keep the house plants alive… it’s not like I am death to plants.  I’m just time constrained.

But what would I grow in one largish bucket of dirt?

I typically do not like tomatoes, which would be the most likely go-to starter plant.

Cucumbers?  I guess those can grow “up” a lattice.  But how many of those could I eat?  (I don’t like pickles).

I can’t really see growing my very favorite veggies in a largish bucket… those would be broccoli, cauliflower, carrots…  I feel like those are more “plot of earth” veggies than “bucket of dirt” ones.

That’s the main problem, I think.

The things I like…  winter squashes, potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green lettuces, mushrooms… these are not things I think about when “beginning gardening” comes up.

Things I think I could grow… tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, peppers…  These aren’t things that I think I would want to eat too much of.

I have a pear tree… I enjoy picking the few pears that make it to ripe without being swiped by animals.  They are yummy.  I feel good about eating them.

But I tried to grow strawberries once… the bunnies ate them ALL.

Maybe I could plant an apple tree.  I like apples.  Maybe fruit would be easier to deal with.  We had a peach tree when I was a kid, and that was pretty awesome.

I thought about berries…  I like raspberries and blackberries… but the SB didn’t sound too thrilled by the idea of thorny cane breaks full of berries out in the yard.  Of course, sometimes he says non-commital things and I take them as complete condemnation, so maybe that’s a bit of an option.

Anyhow…

Anyone with a bit of advice on how I could satisfy this gardening jones in a non-over-the-top-obsessive-compulsive-digging-up-the-entire-yard kind of way, please feel free to toss out the suggestions.

I want to grow something…  But what?