Non-Gardeners Don't Know

Okay, I just have to say it here. I LOVE my garden. I'm not just pleased. I am thrilled with it. People walk onto my porch and they can't miss it. "Pretty garden," they say. And it is: all shades of bright green in a November brown landscape. But "pretty" isn't enough. The garden is my baby, my pride and joy, my THERAPY. Do I dare attempt to express this to my visitors? Better not. They would probably think I was crazy. So I just smile and say, "Thanks." However, I thought people here might understand. Sometimes I wonder how it is that simple plants in the dirt can give me such satisfaction. Does anyone else carry around this kind of pulsing happiness over such a simple thing? Maybe I AM crazy!

Ummm.... I don't care if people think I am crazy....I will tell anyone who will listen that my garden saved my life, that I am totally in love with my SFG...it's no secret...

Feel free to let your heart burst open here....I think I safely speak for most here when I say we TOTALLY understand, AND share your feelings!!!

Jen

Finch wrote:Does anyone else carry around this kind of pulsing happiness over such a simple thing?

ABSOLUTELY!

I feel like that now and I haven't even done any yet, not even built a box. So just think what I am going to be like when I actually start. :!:

Finch, I have to echo your sentiments. I'm a newbie and am finding it hard to curb my excitement to post all over the place. I've said in a previous post, that my wife jokes that I treat the crop like children and I do in a very real sense. I think tending to a crop is different to the feeling one gets when simply gardening. Very similar and both are wonderful, but for me at least, the crop is different. There is the inate understanding that what you are doing is nourishing and thus more deeply meaningful. Nourishing to the mind, body and soul. The ability to feed oneself and family is somewhat the essence of humanity; a pure and noble survival tool. I have a new found sense of empowerment over today's uber-controlled corpocracy. I've found a connection to the Earth, its cycles, pulsations and vibrations that I find inescapable. I planted my seeds by the moon and tried to follow some of the Rotheraine principles of bio-dynamic farming, i'm not sure if this helped but it just felt right. Am I re-connecting to the dormant human sixth sense...perhaps or perhaps hogwash? I nearly always tend to the SFG barefoot, rain or shine, to take care of the emerging science of "grounding" oneself. Apparantly insulating ourselves from the Earths healing negative charge by wearing rubber sneakers all these years has been awful for our health and well being...who knew !! I'm learning so much about myself through SFG than I ever thought imaginable. It's like at 36, I've suddenly hit a reset button and can tune out of the distractions of the beer and ball games (as fun as they still are ) and simply prioritize the things in life that are truly important..and yes folks, all through my experience with my SFG. A shift in consciousness perhaps? I sit quietly, amongst my crop and pray / meditate / relax / reflect. I feel my heart rate slow, my breathing deepen and my mind wanders. So if all this makes YOU crazy Miss Finch..then I'm right up there with ya girl. Mad as a hatter, guilty as charged...and I don't mind one bit.

Perhaps someone will make me a straight jacket out of all this bubble wrap i'm buying for my winterizing (see post) project

Finch, it's good to see you posting again. We missed your wonderful posts over the summer.

I totally know what you and Staf are talking about. Sometimes I just like to go and sit in my garden and feel the peace. It's almost as though there is a whole different world there that I never noticed when we row-gardened all those years with sterile rows of plants that I resented because I constantly had to dig and weed and try to make those unruly plants toe the line. It just wasn't natural. My SFG garden of boxes, trellises, and raised beds planted in grids feels real.

Even now when I know I have to do the distasteful chores such as killing bugs and worms, it is okay because it sort of brings me out of my artificial world and down to real things that are important. I get joy from just being in my SFG garden. It is a crazy-quilt place that is full of color, fun, and life.

Staf, I have always gardened by the moon signs and taken a lot of ribbing from others for doing so. My educated head tells me there couldn't be anything to it, and yet my sentimental heart always feels right when I do it and wrong when I don't. I never knew why, but maybe you hit the nail on the head. Maybe it makes me feel connected, not only to the natural cycles of the earth but of my own world, too. It connects me to the time of my childhood when my grandmother taught me how to garden, and she always followed the moon signs when planting. It always seems to make a difference in the growth, and I do it when I can but I don't obsess about it when I can't.

My garden connects me to the generations of my family who have passed before me who passed their knowledge on to their children and grandchildren, and I'm passing the knowledge I have along to my own children and grandchildren. One of our daughters had her first box this summer which she planted with her two young sons, (the first knowledge they gained is that radishes do not taste like cherries,) and our other daughter asked for her first boxes for Christmas. We just returned home after setting those up for her, and when we left she had a flat of cold-weather plants waiting to go into her boxes. We shared a big chuckle as we watched our two young granddaughters happily digging up her Mel's Mix and scattering it on the sidewalk as she waved goodbye to us. (Good thing she has a huge compost pile.)

Even if we had no children there would be friends, family members, and newbies on the forum to share gardening with. It's all part of the same cycle.

Thanks to you both (and Jennie, Megan, and Mick) for expressing it all so well.