Overcoming My Fears: Gardening

Remember when I made that confession about being scared to work with dough? Well, here is another one of those kind of confessions. I really stink at gardening and I mean STINK! I swear that when the flowers see me coming, they start to wither and hold each other. The violets really do shrink into a ball and the tulips sag their heads. Despite working in a nursery every summer of my high school and college career, I just never was that great with plants. I thought it might be genetic because my mom is the same way, but my grandmother maintains a beautiful garden and the flowers seem to all stand to attention for her.

I also don’t like being outdoors. Or being too hot. Or being dirty. Or working too hard. Basically, I am your average girly-girl, who was just made to sit in the shade and sip iced tea.

Fortunately, this girly-girl is extremely frugal, and my dismay with produce prices really got the best of me. I thought to myself, “Why not have a garden for myself?” I immediately pictured myself bringing baskets of beautiful produce to our friends and family to share the bounty of my hard work. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be the neighbor that people can’t wait to see knock on their door with loads of yummy treats?

So…I did it! I overcame my fear of planting (and getting dirty) and planted myself a little vegetable garden. I managed to plant parsley, rosemary, sweet basil, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes and green peppers.

Don’t worry, I was not wearing these shoes….

But I was wearing this highly fashionable John Deere shirt. Why not get into the spirit, I say?

Above is our finished product and I couldn’t be more proud! I greeted my hubby at the door with the biggest smile he had ever seen. He gave me the strangest look and said, rather scared, “You have dirt on your face.”

So, avid gardening readers, share with me your BEST gardening tips! Tell me everything you know! How do you keep those pesky varmints away from the greens? What is your tip for the best produce imaginable? What is the one thing you wish you would have known when you began dabbling in gardening? Does it run in your family? Please share!

Published May 08, 2007 by:

Amy Allen Clark is the founder of MomAdvice.com. You can read all about her here.

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