A few weeks ago, I bought a few seeds at the grocery store. I only picked up what I already knew would thrive in the Texas heat, things my parents used to grow in their backyard garden when I was a girl — okra, cucumber, squash & some flower seeds.
We didn’t have a garden yet. We were planning to wait until after the renovations, but I couldn’t help myself. It was only a few dollars for the bundle of seeds, and I figured it’d be a fun project. Something to do in between the heavy lifting.
We had leftover fencing of all different types — wooden fence posts, iron bars, chicken wire. We threw it all together in the most ramshackle way imaginable. We strung a barely functioning soaker hose around the edges, and then crossed our fingers that our shoddy construction would keep out the deer, hogs, bunnies, and whatever else might come sniffing around for a meal.
After turning the soil and pulling out the grass and weeds, I planted the seeds with the same devil-may-care attitude as we’d “built” the rest of the garden.
Then we watered it, shrugged our shoulders, and told it good luck! “If it grows, it grows,” we told each other (more than once) and drove back to the city to finish out the workweek.
But then when we came back just a few days later, lo and behold, there were dozens of tiny sprouts peeking their heads out of the soil. Sprouts! It felt like pure magic. Like the most unimaginable surprise.
Sure, we had planted seeds with the hope they would sprout and turn into viable plants, but it still felt like it shouldn’t have actually happened. Like they should have poked their heads up, taken one look at their surroundings, and wilted on the spot.
But they didn’t, so that weekend we planted more seeds in a garden off to the side. We planted tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini, pumpkin, two types of lettuce, onion, carrots.
I’m embarrassed to admit we didn’t little to no research before planting our new seeds. We planted them in a very similar manner as the previous ones. I threw them out and swiped some dirt over them. Next year, I will do more research. But this year, we’re just seeing what happens.
Part of me feels like I shouldn’t blog about this year’s attempt, because I fear our garden is doomed to fail. But I’d like to document to journey from the very beginning.
And guess what? Last weekend, there were sprouts everywhere! An abundance of sprouts. I was most worried about the lettuce not germinating, but they were some of the first sprouts to pop up and say hello.
I have no idea how our little garden will fare as the months go on and the Texas heat fully kicks in. But it has already been so much fun watching tiny seeds turn into tiny sprouts and week by week grow bigger and sturdier.
I hope you’ll come along for our journey. If you know about gardening, any and all advice is welcome! We’re standing here at the budding start of an adventure, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
avantgardener 