The Beginning of Fresh & Delicious

Here are some personality traits that are relevant to what I did today:

I procrastinate 50% of the time (only on less important things).

I like to try to be as self sufficient as possible.

I'm a country girl at heart (and sometimes it shows).

I'm an overachiever.

One of my favorite things to do while I still lived at home with my mom and dad on the farm was help with bailing hay. I can't explain why, but to this day I still absolutely LOVE throwing bails. I love the hot and humid summer days, insects and birds and critters bustling about, the smell of fresh cut hay as it dries out, the beautiful expanse of the hay field and the woods that border it, the sound of my dad and uncles hollering directions to everyone over the loud puff of the tractors... It might sound ridiculous, but I loved those days. 

I've never been afraid to get my hands dirty. I probably sweat more than your average girl and I'm not afraid to admit it, because it just means I can work real hard and keep up with most of the men I grew up around. I can catch, kill, scale (or skin, if it's a catfish), gut, and fillet a fish all on my own. I can handle a gun just fine too. 

I like showing off that I know how to do those things. There was one thing, however, that was a requirement while I was growing up in the South and living on the farm, that I absolutely despised. You can ask my mother--I'd fight with her about it every summer. 

I hated working in the garden. 

Flower gardening I loved--I enjoyed creating beautiful groups of colors and shapes and watching the bees and butterflies pollinate the flowers as they bloomed. 

But I'm not talking about that kind of garden. 

Every day during the summer at 6am--sometimes earlier--my mom would burst into my bedroom and say in a loud voice, "Time to get up! We've gotta get out before the sun heats up the air!" No matter how many times I said no, or asked why, or complained, or yelled at her about how much I hated it, 10 minutes later I'd always find myself wearing my grubbies in the dirt, pulling weeds and squishing unwanted bugs in the vegetable garden. 

You might be thinking, "Oh yeah, we had a vegetable garden growing up and I didn't mind it so much..." I'm not talking about a 10-foot by 10-foot plot of dirt in your back yard. We had a garden so big that it seemed like my parents were planting crops for every one in our extended family, everyone at church, and at least half of my high school. It seemed so ridiculous! 

So in light of that background, here are a couple of funny truths: 

1. My mom and dad, even if they have no more kids at home, still maintain a garden just as massive (possibly even bigger) for the whopping two of them. 

2. ....I hate to admit it, but I miss having a vegetable garden... 

And as my mom reads that last sentence, I'm sure she's smirking and thinking to herself, "I knew you would, Janae." 

I completely understand the benefits of it now: food storage, saving money on groceries, learning work ethic, learning to be self sufficient, etc. It makes a lot of sense. Plus, food from your own garden that you've put your own sweat and effort into just tastes better. I'm pretty sure it's scientifically proven. 

The difference is that I'm planting a garden that's the size I want now. No more of that entire acre-sized plot nonsense... 

I just got around to planting our seeds for this year this afternoon. I should have started them at the beginning of the month, really. But I live in Southern California now. I'm pretty sure I could have a vegetable garden any time of year and it would do okay. A couple of weeks later than I originally wanted them to be planted won't make too big of a difference, right?

I'm considering just planting everything in flower pots of varying sizes, because with having a baby in less than two weeks and then caring for a newborn/infant all summer, I'm really not going to be in the mood for kneeling in the dirt every morning to pull weeds when I've been up half the night nursing a baby. But I still want fresh vegetables. So we'll see how this goes.

I found a peat pellet greenhouse starter kit that I bought with a Groupon deal a while back, and decided to give it a try. 

At one point my mother-in-law walked over to the table I was sitting at while working on this, looked at what I was doing, laughed and said, "Has anyone ever told you how incredible you are?!" 

"Bob does most days," I responded, not entirely sure what she was getting at.

Shaking her head and grinning, she said, "I can't believe you used different colored paper for the labels, and then you even color coordinated the toothpicks!" She noticed because it's totally something she'd do too.

I laughed and realized that I'd done that without even thinking. It's just how my brain works! Of course I used different color paper--it's easier to distinguish between than if it was all the same color. And the toothpicks have to coordinate with the color paper I used. Otherwise the colors might clash or the labels wouldn't match and that would bother me every time I'd look at it!

*sigh* 

Overachiever, indeed...

We'll see how these turn out. 

...Some other day we'll have to deal with all of the rabbits and other creatures in the backyard that will eat my poor garden once it's all planted out there

. 

When that happens, I bet I'll wish I had a gun.  

;)