Urban gardeners we are not!

Vegetables, herbs, fruit…love them! Dirt, water, fertilizer, Almanac reader…. less so.

These two tidbits of information really should have been considered, pondered, and quickly, the idea of the Bartons trying garden dismissed. Sadly, we had naiveté, bravado and more than a little arrogance that kept us going down a dirt road to nowhere.

Last spring, my husband decides we are going to plant a garden. At first thought, it made a lot of sense. We make a lot of vegetable juice, as a vegan I EAT a lot of vegetables and organic veggies are a tad pricey. So the idea of heading out to our deck to harvest our food sounded good. Yes, you read that correct, we have a deck… we live in a condo for heaven’s sake. Not the sprawling green acres you were imagining, to be sure.

We got all jacked up about container gardening. We were going to have carrots, beets, celery, lettuces and everything in between. We bought our organic, non-GMO seeds (take that Monsanto) and we were going to really grow local. I could already envision a new set of very granola bumper stickers on our Prius now. (Yes, I am mocking our eco-friendly ways not that I don’t believe in them but we can all get a little haughty about it now and again.)

So the planting commences and this is the part where I quickly start to lose my interest. I don’t really much care for dirt. I know that is weird since I am a trail runner and often end up in various states of filthiness but there is something about “intentionally” digging my hands into dirt and having it under my nails that I do not enjoy.

My husband on the other hand is like Vegas — all in.

About 12-14 days post planting, things are starting to look good.
I was busy posting progress photos to instagram and flaunty my gardening goddess prowess.
And then the sprouting stopped. And then the sprouting began to die. And then soon with it so did our hopes and dreams of having an urban garden. We tried again and were met with more failure. We tried one last time and finally admitted — we aren’t good at this.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of our crops did take off and grow like crazy. On a whim, we planted cat grass. And as you can imagine it grew and grew and grew much to Basil’s delight.

We moved on, fall came, and winter as we all know arrived and just recently bid a praise-God adieu.

Apparently cat grass isn’t all that springs eternal here. I came home the other day to find these sitting on the dining room table.

Hope of being urban gardeners apparently has re-emerged. I, on the other hand, am a realist. In this case, that means if we don’t get any veggies I can say I told you so. And if we do, I will promptly tell all my friends was a great gardener I am.