Gardening as a hobby is not for the weak of heart. Like you, dear reader, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. Zoom meetings and such in this pandemic (has history assigned a name for this yet?) have been merely a distraction from staring vapidly at dumb television shows and deep sighing when I accidentally stumble into the news cycle.
So, I turned to gardening.
I don’t actually know what I’m doing
I am surprised at just how much I have grown as a gardener. Oh, I’ve flirted with growing things in the past. I had strawberries and blueberries, roses and more roses. A beautiful lawn. And a very nice and very gifted lawn guy who helped me get everything under control once or twice a year. By helped I mean he did a lot of it.
Also, those big lawn stores sell pretty foolproof plants, so I’ve never actually grown impressive things from seeds until now. Every little germinated seed is an occasion for celebration. Allow me to share some of the pretty plants I’ve been able to keep alive this spring:
Feeling ever so confident in my incredible skills as a gardener, I very carefully and lovingly nurtured back to life a batch of oregano that had dried up and gone dormant over winter. I watered and tended it throughout the warm spring days, making sure it was getting plenty of sun. In time, I had a wonderful green batch of oregano ready to dry.
I showed it off to a friend who recently came over for a visit on our porch.
She took one look at it and deadpanned: Congratulations. You’ve done a fine job … of raising weeds.
There’s a good lesson in this
There’s nothing like a weed garden to grow in humility. I’m not even mad about it, so I’ll keep it. I’m counting my successes where I can get them!
Have you tried new hobbies or activities recently?
