Bloom Where You Are Planted

I come from a family of gardeners. My father grows grapes. Quite a few of them, in fact. My sister has had her fair share of crops, legal and other, and has a fondness for flowers these days. My mother is a master gardener and has "grafted trees" (whatever THAT means) and was happy to inherit the family orchids from my father's parents after they passed. (They're over 100 years old now and have been split into hundreds of individual plants.) My mom has the ability to look at a plant and know if it needs water, better soil, is a weed, will flower soon, has too much light, was planted in the right area ... all the things that a gardener should know. A relaxing evening to my folks is to take an hour or so after dinner and water a portion of their property - the old fashioned way, with a hose and all. (They have a drip system for most everything and an irrigation plan for the grapes, but still.) Yep - I come from a family of gardeners.

And, while I've commented here before that I'm for sure not adopted, I am the black sheep of the family. Or, more appropriately, the black thumb. I can't tell flower from herb from tree from weed, unless it is flowering, has a trunk, or I'm already cooking it. As I recently confessed elsewhere, I've killed ivy, for cryin' out loud.

So it was a surprise to me how happy I felt when The Awesome Boyfriend told me he was going to get his garden in shape for this approaching season. I know that the rest of the family has been wondering about it (because they've asked "so you kids gonna garden this year?") and I figured we would, but with the amount of snow we had this past Winter, I was curious as to how the soil would look after we ... uh ... "fluffed it up?" (Again, not a gardener so I'm sure there's a more technical term ... perhaps "turned it over" would be better.)

Last night, "Mike, the rototiller guy" showed up as promised and, in less than an hour, he ... errrr ... "tilled?" the plot of land that will be the garden. This morning, I visited the area with a rake and did my best to remove any larger clumps and to level things off. In an hour or so, we're gonna head to the gardening supply store to get ... mmmmm ... whatever it is that we need from the gardening supply store. (Seriously - I have no idea. The Awesome Boyfriend mentioned something about netting and I figured it was to keep the birds out - but apparently it's to keep the weeds out. Or was that "webbing"? Wow yeah, no idea at all.)

So in a few months, perhaps we'll be enjoying the fruits (and veggies and herbs) of our labor. I'll update with "garden news" throughout the season.

This is me, blooming where I've been planted.