Grow Great Grub.

So I picked up this book, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, at our local, public library a few weeks ago and I have become hooked.  Ensnared.  Spell-bound.  Obsessed.  I have the itch people...and I've got it bad.  You know what I'm talking about...

The gardening itch.

We keep expanding our glorious garden, year by year, and this spring will be no exception.  I have big, elaborate, decadent plans that I am about to force Stuart to get started on.  Despite what he says, he likes to be roped into my projects.  It makes him feel needed.  Because I do need him.  See the thing is this:  he has man muscles.  Man muscles are much more effective at doing certain tasks and that's just the way it is.  I ain't too proud to say it.  My muscles are weak.  His are strong.  Therefore, he has been called to shovel compost for me.  And for that, I love him.

See, when you garden, you get to enjoy things like fresh beets.  You get to see little worms.  You get to smell the indisguisable perfume of a tomato plant.  You get to harvest your salad, with your own two hands, minutes before you eat it.  You get to see the wonderful way that God has designed His creation to grow.  You get to see the teeny details on a raspberry and the beautiful lilac shade of an eggplant blossom.  Getting to watch the garden grow is half of the fun.  I have learned to appreciate the various stages of growth for their foundational importance to the finished vegetable.  I have also learned to read up on the weather reports, which makes me feel like an eighty five year old.   Stuart and I even have talks about the weather.  Sometimes we fight about what the last frost date will be.  Things are gettin' wild here!

Ah, to feel sweat soil under my fingernails.  To bite into a crisp cucumber.  To smell the warm basil.

I've got to kick it up a notch this year.  My potatoes didn't fair so well last year and that is just unacceptable.  My goal is to store our produce and use it to help feed us through the winter.  Potatoes, onions, parsnips, carrots, and cabbage can all be stored in our cellar - I just have to master the growing.  I was able to store some onions last year, but didn't grow enough, and they are long gone now.  I must plant and grow as much as we need for six months of cold weather.  Calculate.  Design.  Plan.  I can do this.  I know I can.  I just have to focus.  I have to train.  I have to prepare.  Must.  Get.  Better.

Container planting, the book suggests.  Why, yes, yes I think I will.  Thank you.  Spinach.  Arugula.  Strawberries.  Pole beans.  Butternut squash.  Rosemary.  Lavender.  Chamomile. Ah, the many possibilities!  The dreams that have yet to be fulfilled!

Have you gardened before?  What do you grow?  Any special suggestions for me or fun varieties to try? 

I love that when you grow things yourself, they don't always turn out picture perfect, like in the grocery stores.  Sometimes they are funny shaped.  Or have weird coloring.  Or are extra large or small.  They are unique and beautiful.  Just like people.

Isn't God's Creation wonderful?  Isn't it a joy to get to till the soil and reap the harvest?  If someone paid me, I could totally do this for a living.  "Oh, hello rich person!  You would like to pay me to grow your vegetables?  You got it!"  Maybe I'll start a greenhouse on the homestead.  THAT would be fun.  I love to dream.  Dream big, I say.

Someday, our homestead will have some nut trees and fruit trees.  I will have a teeny, little vineyard for our wine grapes and an arbor of wisteria.  Climbing roses will enclose my back porch and a row of lavender will hedge off the raspberry patch. 

I will have a beautiful lilac bush that will smell like heaven in the early spring.  I will grow mint along the stone path...and thyme will drape from my window baskets.

This post really has no point, other than to let you know that I welcome spring.  While I am so thankful for the winter to rest and work on other projects, I always get anxious for the potential of a new harvest.  I want to feel sunshine and smell dirt.  I want to plant an early harvest of cabbage and spinach and peas and radishes.  I want to order my seeds, get organized, and plan efficiently.

I want to grow more than three potatoes.

And I will.

Because I dream.