Gardening: Sweet agony

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When it comes to gardening, I always start out the year with good intentions.

Seed catalogs offer such enticing possibilities, I begin to envision landscaping around my house that rivals the most gorgeous Japanese garden or Thomas Kinkade painting.

As soon as the first shoots appear in the spring, I visit the nurseries, where I encounter flat after flat of seedlings that all seem to shout in unison: “Take me home! Take me home!”

Once I get a carload of them home, my eyes widen as I realize I actually need to find a place for each one. Oh my.

I tell myself, “God’s work, my hands,” get down on my hands and knees, and start digging in the dirt.

Then the @#$#@ weeds arrive! I belong to several local Facebook gardening groups, and we’re forever sharing tips on how to outsmart those little suckers. None of us ever quite succeeds, but that doesn’t stop us from trying, even those of us committed to not using chemicals in our yards.

But when I gaze upon all my lovely flower beds on a summer morning or slice up that first vine-ripened tomato for lunch, that’s when I decide the results are well worth all the hours of toil.

One could say my relationship with gardening resembles my love-hate relationship with writing. The process may be agonizing, but when I’m finished with a plot, I love having done it.

So to all my fellow gardeners, here is a baker’s dozen of my favorite gardening memes.

43 thoughts on “Gardening: Sweet agony”

  5. The clerk at the nursery told me that I only needed one artichoke plant as they get huge. I responded that I needed at least two because I was sure to kill at least one. At this point they are both on life support as I try to combat the aphids without pesticides. On the bright side, I have loads of tomatoes on a plant that produced fruit throughout the winter. Thanks for luring me to your blog!

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  7. I love gardening! I especially like to plant flowers, but I have some veggies too. There is nothing like working in the garden…some things do well, and some things don’t do as well. It is always a surprise, and a learning experience. 🙂

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  8. I have never become a gardener, so I am a garden admirer. This works for us since Charlie not only loves to garden he volunteers to weed for church things like Habitat for Humanity. Charlie has never met a weed he isn’t eager to dislodge!

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  18. This is my second year of gardening and I have purchased raised beds, seeds, weather protectors, and bags and bags of soil, so I would have to get five or six acres of produce before I break even‼️🥴

    My brother compared me to a friend of his, who disgusted with the price of fish in AZ, bought a boat, fishing gear and traveled over 100 miles to a lake and brought back four small fish. “There,” he said. “That’ll teach ‘em to charge so much for fish.”😂

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