Grateful gardeners book will get you focused on all the good you’ve sown
We’ve all had epic fails. The carrots that inexplicably remained tiny, the tomatoes that never bloomed or the zucchini plants that got away and took over the entire garden patch. But two gardening experts are encouraging their fellow green (and black) thumbs to remember the good and let go of the bad with a new journal they’ve published.
The Three Year Gardener’s Gratitude Journal, written by longtime Herald and radio garden columnist Donna Balzer and her daughter Chelsie Anderson, an expert with a garden business in her own right, encourages growers to track successes and record vital information. The book is part diary and part personal growing guide that will have you reflecting on what you’re grateful for.
“Unless you are tracking your success, you are only guessing about the effects of global warming, results from amending your soil, or better yields from new plants. Tracking what you do, by observing it now, will shape success later,” is their sage advice.
“Positive memories pile up and become a diary packed with happiness and joy.”
The book includes spaces to record daily happenings and also what you saw and heard in the garden each day. There are gardening tips and stickers, and quotes sprinkled throughout are some of Balzer and Anderson’s own memories in 48 Garden Good News Stories.
The first essay in the book is particularly good at reminding us all while we garden. Enjoy this excerpt from the book ($28.55), available through donnabalzer. com or chelsiesgardens.com
Also look for more advice from Balzer on a weekly Facebook live event every Monday.
Growing Forward: Making realistic (garden) resolutions
By: Donna Balzer
“You should see Marie’s garden,” my Helpful Husband says one day last fall. “It’s just beautiful.” Yes it is. No contest.
I’ve seen the pretty pots on her doorstep, and I’m familiar with her weed-free garden. My efforts are not in the same league. “I’m not retired yet,” I remind Helpful Husband.
My neighbour, Linda, laughs with me, not at me, when she says my garden is a three-ring circus. I think she’s really saying there are so many happy accidents she doesn’t know where to look first.
If you want to build the best garden, grow the best food, and raise the best petunias this summer, now is the time to set growing goals in motion. And please do embrace your neighbours’ and your friends’ gardens instead of competing with them. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll embrace your style right back.
I promise that this year, I’ll start focusing — really focusing — on taming the lion and otherwise controlling the circus; I’ll keep getting better at keeping things tidy; and I’ll grow an even better garden this year for the following six reasons:
I will order only enough seeds or plants to feed my family. Anything more than two zucchini plants or two packages of lettuce is just too much. Buying one six-pack of already growing leeks instead of one thousand seeds means I won’t have nine hundred and ninety-four extra seedlings to grow and give away.
I will stick to trying only one or two new things. Catalogues offer thousands of options and dozens of new varieties, but again, I need to control the circus. If I try to grow every new thing, the juggler will collapse and the fire-breathing performer will run out of steam. Deer are a problem for me, so I won’t buy apple trees or other tasty plants that deer love unless I remove something from inside my fenced area first. In other words, I can’t announce on Mother’s Day that I want to extend the deer fencing to plant a rose bush. Unless I extend the fencing before planting season, and create another ring in the circus, there’s no room for new plants.
In northern gardens, summer is really only eight weekends long, and the harvest starts seriously during this period, so I need to resist the temptation — even if my son gets married — to leave home for more than a week at a time in summer.
My garden is not a “travelling ” circus. Free cuttings or plants that have outgrown their spots in a neighbour’s or friend’s garden will not be welcome in mine. Plants that are vigorous enough to outgrow their spots are like weeds, and if I can’t have all the new plants being offered. I definitely won’t make room for “white elephants.”
I won’t rely entirely on automatic irrigation because it never takes extreme rain or heat or the overhanging roof into consideration. I need to check potted plants every morning during the growing season by sticking my finger into the soil as I take time to stroll my yard.
I will also fertilize pots and hanging baskets weekly so that these trapeze artists become the best they’re meant to be.
I accept that my garden will never be as pretty as Marie’s or Linda’s, but it still brings me plenty of pleasure and produce. The giggles and antics in my garden are a show I wouldn’t miss.