Planning My Personal Garden: A Brief History
It’s that time of year when gardeners and farmers are planning their upcoming season and eagerly awaiting spring. This is a very familiar place for me - scouring seed catalogs and doodling bed layouts - but I haven’t always had the pleasure of pre-season giddiness. Before we moved to this farm in 2019, we spent a year in western North Carolina where Will was working a desk job for a local food hub and I was home with Rose (fully immersed in postpartum depression, but that’s a story for another day). It was a really hard year. As a couple, Will and I had never worked apart and we had never lived off-farm. Needless to say, it did not work for us. Thankfully, it only lasted for one year and we ended up landing at our current situation - back on a farm where we belong.
Our first summer on the farm in Pennsylvania.
But our first year here was strange for me. We were living on this beautiful, lively farm that my husband was managing and producing an awesome amount of food - but I was on the sidelines. Watching the farm happen from a distance. And it was hard. I felt almost as disconnected as I did when we were in North Carolina. I was (am) a former full-time farmer who was now in the role of farmer’s wife and full-time mom. I felt lost. Even though I was on the farm I wasn’t actually farming. I didn’t have my hands in the dirt. I wasn’t watching my plant babies grow into gorgeous, harvestable food. I wasn’t feeding anyone. (Mind you, I was raising a toddler with a limited support system, so I was feeding someone AND doing all of the other things, but I surely wasn’t farming.)
I started seeing a therapist that summer and quickly realized that I need to grow things. My therapist said it was my prescription, of sorts, and I agreed. Growing food and raising animals are integral parts of who I am and they keep me grounded in a way nothing else does. I had to find a way to grow again. Thankfully, I got permission from the farm director to claim a corner of the sheep’s pasture as my own and use it to grow a personal garden the following year.
I decided to till a 25’ x 50’ plot - the smallest space I’ve ever grown on - which was honestly so challenging. I had only ever grown on farms with huge fields and rows upon rows of vegetables. I had never attempted to grow a small garden just for myself. I was totally out of my comfort zone (and I still am, to be honest). But I did what I could. I got myself a teeny little pop-up greenhouse and planted some seeds. I now have two summers under my belt and - while they’ve both been a bit of a mess and were somewhat overshadowed by pregnancies and miscarriages and a global pandemic - they’ve both been really wonderful. Having the space to grow plants and raise animals is an absolutely necessary part of who I am and I’m so grateful I found a way to do it again.
Surviving 2020 as best we could - keeping our hands dirty.
So, now that you know my post-farmer/new mom/gardener history, here we are heading into year three of growing in our personal garden and I think this will surely be the best year yet (as every gardener thinks before the start of every season, right?). Mainly because I’ve decided to stop growing vegetables. I know, I know, blasphemy, but hear me out. My husband grows vegetables for a living. That’s it. I don’t need to grow them. Over the past two years, I’ve had very little motivation to maintain them or harvest them, especially since they were already magically appearing in my kitchen. So, even though vegetables started my love affair with farming, I broke up with growing them for now. I’ll still throw a few fun ones in for Rose to enjoy, but for the most part we’re through. And I feel pretty good about it.
I’ve moved on to solely growing flowers and herbs - culinary and medicinal. The growing process is essentially the same, but herbs and flowers just feel easier for some reason. Plus they’re gorgeous and smell amazing. We love using fresh herbs in cooking all year long, so they’re an obvious choice. Medicinal herbs have been a slower learning process for me. I started dabbling after being inspired by a female farm mentor back in 2013 and every year I add one or two more to my supply. I mainly use them dried for teas and solar-infused oils, but I’m hoping to try some tinctures and soap-making this year. So, with all that said, here’s my 2022 Grow List:
Culinary Herbs:
Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Oregano, Parsley, Sage, Thyme
Medicinal Herbs:
Arnica, Calendula, Chamomile, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Milky Oats, Poppy, Red Clover, Tulsi, Yarrow
Flowers:
Marigolds, Sunflowers, Zinnias
(Rose has big plans to sell flower bouquets to raise money to buy a dairy cow. We’ll see if it actually happens…)
Vegetables:
Cherry Tomatoes, Dry Corn, Pickling Cucumbers, Winter Squash (I ordered so many fun varieties of edible pumpkins for Rose to grow. She’s going to be pumped.)
Not too much and not too little. But it can all be overwhelming, right? The possibilities are endless. Keeping it somewhat simple works for me. I stick with plants I know I’ll use at home or in products to sell or, at the very least, plants that make me happy (calendula is my ride or die). I try not to make a ton of changes from season to season because having too many new things at once can make my head spin and you never know what’s coming (see also; pregnancy, miscarriage, global lockdown, supply chain disasters, etc.). All I can do is keep trying and hope to learn something with each passing season.
Harvesting baskets of herbs during golden hour is my ultimate happy place.
So, that’s the plan for my 2022 personal garden. There’s so much more I could say - and I likely will once the season is here and I’m actually doing the work - but this seems enough for winter daydreaming. Until spring…