The Fergus Falls Daily Journal

Gardening

By Allison Myhre

May 21, 2008

2 comments

Sometimes I freeze in my bewilderment of things which I do not know and cannot control. And my latest brave venture into the unknown is a pretty big step for me.

I’ve taken up gardening.

Yes, I’m sure there are gasps and bursts of laughter from those who know me and have witnessed the death of many an indoor and outdoor plant under my care.

But my daughter went to Garden Day in Underwood with her dad, and has been reading books about gardens and flowers, and so months ago I agreed that we would definitely plant a garden when the snow went away and ground warmed up.

There were big plans on my part. Plans to visit the library and find some good gardening books. Plans to actually read the garden section of Better Homes and Gardens. Plans to poke around at my neighbor’s fantastic garden on Long Lake and learn through osmosis. None were realized.

So this weekend, with no excuses to prevent me from moving forward, our family tackled the garden. And I froze. I stood on our deck and watched as our kind neighbor brought over a tiller and dug up a garden that had once functioned in that capacity with previous owners of our house. In recent years it was an overgrown rectangle of tiger lilies and day lilies with a few rhubarb and peony plants that had seen better days.

So with the firm belief that I have been given a fresh start at a green thumb, I tiptoed down the hill behind the house and stared at the ground up piles of dirt spread out in front of me. Our neighbor made it seem easy. We staked out rows for tomatoes and peppers, and dug up some mounds for pumpkins and squash. We’ll plant everything this week, and are going to spread newspaper and mulch over the garden (to keep the weeds from taking over) and we’ll see what happens.

I have some containers that I’ll keep on my deck for herbs, and I’ll make sure to keep my begonias in the shade, and my pansies and petunias in the sun.

Wish me luck.