Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Only the Beginning

This weekend I began work on my very first garden project. There are several reasons why I’ve resisted getting my hands dirty until now:

1.Prior to last summer, the first spent in our new house, I had only lived in apartments since college. I had no patch of dirt to call my own, with the exception of the occasional fire escape herb garden gently fertilized by bus fumes and incinerator dust. The only real garden I ever had was a very successful crop of catnip that I planted when I was 7 or 8 for my kitty Pu-Puss (yes, that was his name). I really enjoyed being a grower of feline drugs, not sure why.

2. I am notorious as a killer of all vegetation. My thumb is reaper-black. I have put asunder everything from windowsill violets to supposedly idiot-proof ficus plants. But I am now fortified by two things to try keeping a garden alive: I read something in a gardening memoir that basically said it’s OK to kill stuff and start over. Real gardeners rip out failed plants and put in new things all the time. This was very enlightening. The second thing I have going for me is my trusty guru