I Am A Garden Recluse

We moved onto this property 13 years ago. We spent the summer putting in necessary little things like a septic, a well, and a driveway before we pulled our single wide castle on wheels onto a leveled pad, unhitched it, and called the thing home. That summer, while we were busy developing farmland into something livable, I started a garden. The garden has been here longer than a residence has.

I've spent every summer for the past 13 years doing and re-doing to the garden. Except for the summer that we built the house; I think that was The Year of the Weed. But in my defense, I was building a house. And Micah had thrice weekly in-home therapy. And I was homeschooling. And wah, wah, wah. Every spring, I pore over magazines, and peek into neighbor's yards, and peer at landscaping sites on the internet. Every summer, I buy more perennials to add here or there, or to make something new altogether.

What started as a vegetable garden to feed the family morphed into ten flower gardens, two herb gardens, and two vegetable gardens. And still, I do more. This year, we plowed up the pony paddock (hello, awesomely fertilized dirt) and planted a tomato patch to supply Hunt's for the next 3 years. (Okay, it's only 71 plants, but still. I was suffering from a rare form of dementia when I purchased them. Obviously.) I'm also planting potatoes for the very first time ever.

With all this green and growing beauty around me, you'd think the place would be awesome. And yet, I drive by neighbor's yards and think, "wow, their place looks so nice with that. If only I had *that*." Or I'd see magazines featuring gardens and lawns and think, "wow, that's so much nicer than what I've got. I need to re-do some things." And no matter whether I traveled North or South or East or West, I'd come home to my acreage and see weeds and word, with potential that needed help.

And then I went to Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh this spring, and that strange thing happened when I got home where I looked at my humble gardens and said, "I love this. A lot." And for the first time in 13 years, I am incredibly happy with my gardens. I have a definite "done" feeling about things, for better or worse.

Better: My gardens make me very happy. I love looking at them, working in them, and even thinking about them.

Worse: I never want to leave them. Sam offered to take me out for dinner to a steak house the other night, and 1/2 mile down the road we both said, "let's just stay home tonight instead."

Better: This could directly translate into a whole lot of money saved. If I stay out of stores and restaurants, our checkbook will be happier for it.

Worse: I am becoming a recluse. If I could stay in my gardens forever and ever, I'd be perfectly content.

Gardens make me incredibly happy.