Too big can be overwhelming, and too small could leave you wishing for more. But my idea of too small may be another’s idea of just right, so I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective. Garden perspective, that is.
When I first started gardening, it was a small, urban garden, but still held an impressive 50 or more tomato plants, a few peppers, and some lettuce that I grew entirely by accident. The accidental lettuce happened when the seed was somehow mixed into another type of seed I’d planted. Up until that point, I had no idea I could actually grow my own lettuce.
After moving to the farmstead, our garden grew to an impressive 20 by 20, or 400 square feet. Little did I know, I was well on my way to a gardening addiction, and that year would be the last time I could fit the entire garden into the frame of a single photo.
As the years passed, the garden grew in size. At the last measurement, it was 16,000 square feet and expanding.
It wasn’t all in one big, plowed spot. No, I never got around to even buying a tiller. It was with the help of black plastic and a garden fork that the garden grew, and grew, and grew. Of course the chickens did their share, because everyone pitches in around here.
As a result of the layout of our land and the different gardening methods, we had the East Garden, the West Garden, the Upper Garden, and the Lower Garden. We also had the Squash Patch, Potato Patch, and the Corn Patch.
I had the standards: tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and cucumbers, and all those “normal” veggies. But then I had the unusual: husk cherries, tomatillos, pink banana squash, tiny cucumbers, blue corn, popcorn, and tomatoes of every color, flavor and size.
I started seeds as early as January and spent my springs in a flurry of flying dirt, sunburn, and aching muscles.
Late summer was a manic rush to can, freeze, dehydrate and preserve every last morsel.
I was an ant in a grasshopper world. I was unstoppable.
And then…
We realized that our garden had literally taken over, and our “fixer-upper” home wasn’t getting much “fixing-upping.”
Summer is frightfully short in Ohio, and we needed to concentrate on the house. At least that was what I kept telling myself.
I had even toyed with the idea of not gardening at all this year. “After all,” I told myself, “the free time will give me a chance to get some serious work done on the house.”
But then my editor gave me an excellent excuse by – I mean twisted my arm into – writing this column by asking, “Would you like to write a gardening column?”
I took my time to think it over. After all, I needed to spend my free time working on the house instead of playing in the dirt.
So I waited until she had finished the entire sentence before I surrendered to her super-human powers of persuasion with a resounding, “Yes!”
Of course this year’s garden lacks the grand scale of previous years, and for the first time in a decade I can fit it all into one photo. It’s small, comparatively, but should produce a lot.
Though I may seem a little sensitive about it, it’s like they say: It’s not the size that matters.
Right?
