G is for Gardening: It’s (Almost) Time to Plant!

Note: This post is part of an A to Z blogging challenge I’m participating in.

Well, it’s gone from 30 degrees to nearly 90 and then back down to 50 in the span of 4 days, so it must be spring in Pittsburgh!

That means it’s finally time to start preparing our garden.

Gardening is one of my most basic joys in life, and it’s one of the things I look forward to the most when the warm weather starts to roll in.

Planting miniature seedlings and watching them blossom into giant plants, chock full of veggies (hopefully)…few things in life are as simple, or as rewarding.

My garden is small, but it is well loved.  And I love the fact that my kiddo loves to dig in the dirt, too.  Each year, she helps me pick out veggies to plant – usually a mix of tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, cukes and herbs. For the past three years, she’s been growing celery and carrots, carefully watering them and watching them sprout and grow.

Gardening is an exercise in patience and creativity, and it can be at once frustrating and relaxing. The concept is simple – dig a hole, bury some seeds or the roots of a seedling, water it – but if the weather’s too wet, all of your hard work could literally be washed away. If it’s too hot and dry, your plants will struggle to thrive. Like everything else in life, it’s all about finding balance, and adjusting your methods if necessary.

Gardening is a true mind-body connection. It teaches us—and our children—so much about the earth, about where our food comes from, about nature, about ourselves. There is no better produce on this earth than the kind you grow in your own backyard. If you’ve never enjoyed the crisp of lettuce that’s just been cut off of its stalk, the sweetness of a bell pepper that’s just been pulled off of a stem, or the juice of a ripe strawberry picked from the vine, you honestly don’t know what you’re missing.

Not sure where to start? Even if you don’t have space in your yard, try your hand at container gardening! We typically grow our tomatoes in containers and they blossom and grow just as they would in the ground. Just make sure the containers have plenty of drainage and are large enough to sustain a rapidly growing plant. And then pray that it doesn’t snow in May or June, after everything’s been planted. This is Pittsburgh, after all. 😉

Are you a gardener? Do your kids love to plant a garden? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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