Nice Work!

Montana is the only place I've ever lived where people say congratulations when I tell them I'm harvesting from my garden. As I've mentioned before, gardening here is an ambitious effort. With an average growing season of 74 days, we often see our last frost in early June and our first one at the beginning of September. We live at a high altitude, deal with frequent high winds, hail, and poor soil conditions. At this time of year, we're often dealing with drought conditions combined with water restrictions, which can make caring for the plants extra tricky.

I will admit that my other half and I are a bit above average when it comes to our gardening efforts. This is our fourth summer gardening together and I like to think that we're starting to get the hang of it. We've learned what plants do well (peas, lettuce, squash) and what isn't worth the effort (corn, cabbage,  melons). We've brought in soil, which was deposited in our driveway in a hill and we moved it to the back yard with shovels, wheelbarrows and the help of family members. We start planning our garden in January and order seeds which we plant indoors beginning in March. This year we had a common problem in that our tomatoes were six inches tall and ready to go in the soil but it was still too cold to put them out.

The first few weeks that things are in the ground are always nerve wracking. Sometimes we have to cover plants overnight with tarps to avoid frost. But once June is in full swing and the days are long and sunny, things start to take root and flourish.

This summer is unique because I'm not working. I've been able to send much more time in the garden than previous summers. It has been therapeutic for me as well, as I've cried over and recovered from my loss, and thought about my future with my toes in the dirt. I'm usually pretty emotionally invested in the garden but this year I am even more so. I haven't decided if that's good or bad! I've lost a couple plants for various reasons and it really bums me out. My carrots are doing better than they ever have and I attribute that to all the time I've spent thinning, weeding and tilling around them. Earlier this week I harvested my first sugar snap peas. I bit into one right there in the garden. It was warm from the sun, sweet and crispy. I felt full inside, with pride and a sense of accomplishment different from previous harvests.

I do believe everything happens for a reason. There's never a good time for bad things to happen but the timing of everything that happened to me this spring couldn't have been better. If it was winter and I was cooped up in the house, I know my rough few weeks would have stretched on and on. Instead, even though I was sad or worried, I'd make myself go outside at least once a day to water the plants and check on them. I look forward to eating from the garden as the summer goes on, but especially this winter, when we'll eat salsas, jams and frozen veggies we've preserved. Even though it might remind me of a sad time, it will be proof of what I was able to do during that time. Sometimes it's amazing to me that I've accomplished anything at all over the past two months. If I can do this now, I know that when I'm healed and motivated, I will be able to conquer anything I put my mind to!

My Accidental Garden

I picked my first bouquet of flowers from my garden today. It's not much but it's pretty and I'm proud of it. Gardening in Montana is especially difficult but these flowers manage to thrive without much of the backbreaking work that the vegetable garden requires so I'm particularly fond of them.

The sunflower was the first to bloom of the many growing in random spots throughout the garden. They're a result of me throwing the heads from last year into the garden with a shrug of "We'll till 'em in and see what happens". It's not terribly convenient to have them where they are, but they look cool!

Marigolds are one of my favorite flowers. They make me happy because they remind me of my childhood. Just the smell alone triggers memories. My mother always had marigolds growing in her flower beds. In fact, these particular ones came from a pack of seeds she sent me a couple years ago. I planted them and let them go to seed, not expecting much to happen in the spring due to our harsh Montana winters. They came back. Then last year I left them alone again and they came back in full force this year. I'll admit now that I made a mistake. There are literally thousands of marigolds growing in my side garden, around the lettuce, chard and peas that I planted in the same spot, not expecting the marigolds to go so crazy. I'm not exaggerating when I say the area has gotten out of control. Last weekend I finally decided I needed to address the situation because it had gotten so dense, between the veggies, flowers and weeds, that it was almost impossible to see what was what. I decided I would transplant a bunch to my front yard and give some away to friends. Once I have removed about thirty plants and a bunch of weeds, I stepped back and took a look, expecting to see a huge difference but I was disappointed. When my boyfriend came over to look, he could barely tell I had removed any plants at all. In a nice way, he called the marigolds invasive weeds and gave me the cold hard truth: I'm going to have to thin them out and throw them away. I looked at the crowded garden and nodded slowly "There's too many. I understand."I knelt down in the dirt and spent about a half hour pulling more weeds and some flowers. I know they're plants but they're so crowded and overgrown, it made me feel sad and guilty for allowing the situation to get to where it is.

It's been almost a week and I still haven't removed any more plants. I know I need to. I'll do it, I promise. I was just so pleased to see the flowers blooming when I went outside today that I picked them, brought them in and didn't go back out. I just hate the thought of having to discard so many plants that grow here easily when everything else fights so hard to survive. Hopefully the marigolds I transplanted will thrive in their new location and I won't have to face this awful task again!

V is for Vegetables

Even though it's late April, it's still not quite spring here in Montana. As is usual for this time of year, my house is full of seedling plants waiting to be transplanted into the ground once it's warm enough. Gardening in Montana is hard work. The growing season is short, summers are harsh and particularly where I live, the soil is not great. But despite all that, it's worth it to us because there really is something special about eating vegetables that you grew yourself. There are so many benefits I get from spending that time outdoors caring for the plants and harvesting. I like weeding the garden barefoot and eating tomatoes and peas right off the vine. There's nothing like it! Fresh veggies are great all summer long but it feels extra good when it's the middle of winter and we're eating eating tomato sauce, salsa and jam that was made with our harvest. We've given some of our preserved foods away as Christmas gifts and it always seems to bring people joy.

Every once in a while, I run across a person who says they don't like vegetables. It always surprises me because I eat so many that I can't imagine what I'd be eating without them. I've never been a picky eater and I've always liked veggies and eaten them readily. Sure there are a few on my Least Favorite list but I'll eat just about anything!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

       Last year, my boyfriend and I went a bit overboard in our excitement to have a large garden. We started planting seeds in early March when it was still cold and snowy. We provided artificial light and tended to the seedings daily. It was a lot of work and we couldn't wait to get them outside. Our intention was to spend Memorial Day weekend transplanting our young plants and establishing our garden, but in typical Montana fashion those three days were gray, rainy and chilly. So what we ended up with were couple hundred small plants covering every flat surface in our home that got direct sunlight until mid June when we were finally past the danger of frost. This photo shows some tomato and corn plants in my laundry room.