Gardening: Slowing Down

goals.

I think it’s funny that in 2019 we seem to be moving forward and backward at the same time.

We can have food delivered to us from almost any restaurant as we sit in our pajamas. We can have cupcakes delivered from New York overnight if we aren’t happy with the ones down the street. We can watch almost any concert we want, and we can be on another continent in hours when it used to take weeks. We shop for almost everything in our lives online. Our phones know where we live and try to anticipate our every thought.

And then we’re also rediscovering so many things we thought were old and outdated. Cooking is becoming cool again. Small pottery stores are exploding with demand for hand-thrown coffee mugs. We spend more money on clothes made with safe workers and slower production times. Film cameras are in vogue.

So, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I got the gardening bug a few years ago. It started with just buying flowers for the yard, but I kept researching and digging. I stumbled upon tips and hacks for growing flowers on Pinterest, and I decided I needed to be more conscious of the foods I ate.

In addition to flowers, I’m learning to grow food. Obviously, some plants will be easier. If you buy plant starts from a local farmer or even the grocery store, you’re in for an easier time than if you start your own plants from seeds.

For me, I’m going to take it as a challenge. I don’t expect to keep all of my plants alive, but I’ll be happy to try my hand at not killing everything.

If I can eat one thing from my garden this summer, I’ll be a pretty happy lady. And knowing that my produce is going to be fresh and not full of pesticides and herbicides, or even genetically modified, is going to be incredibly rewarding. I’m already giddy thinking about grabbing a strawberry before the birds get to it.

And, yeah, it is going to take a lot of time to plant seeds, weed the garden, and water three garden beds and two raspberry bushes. But what would I be doing otherwise? Scrolling, probably.

Maybe we’re not moving backwards at all. Maybe forward is just coming back around.