How We Garden

Our garden isn’t somewhere you sit and chill out - though I find myself on the steps of our porch most mornings listening to the birds and watching the sun rise with coffee in hand. If our garden was a sitting garden it wouldn’t be our garden. We are active people who ‘do’ from the moment our eyes open until we lay down to sleep. Tending it more than relaxing in it fits us better than a visually stunning landscape design. Both of which serve an important purpose depending on who you are and what you need from your place. It took a very long time to get this space of earth to be the garden we always wanted. I am sure if you asked one of us a question about it we would tell you what we will do differently next time or in the future or where it needs some work. In order to achieve what we have created Jason and I had to learn how to communicate our vision with each other. It wasn’t easy. He’s visual, dreams big, and likes a long term giant plan that often overwhelms me. I like order, rows, and to learn through observation and mistakes - which he likes too, but my vision of the big picture of our garden errs towards this growing season verses ten years from now. We make it work and I’m forever grateful for his knowledge and willingness to simply do it together. In the beginning, when we decided to truly put down our roots and move towards homesteading - which we get a little better at every year - we had to decide where to start and how to start. Then, we had to figure out what we both wanted to get out of this place we call home. We also had to figure out how to give back to it because that’s the tending piece, yes? Our garden, like us, is an active place. It is a continual work in process. It is constantly being reinvented, changing, growing. Sometimes it thrives and sometimes we have epic fails. It is a reflection of us. It is a place where we learn about living and loving. We walk it together almost nightly cutting our cucumbers, okra, herbs for dinner and we dream about the next phase.. our food forest and orchard!