It’s been my longtime ambition to maintain a massive garden. Despite being raised on a tiny city lot, I always looked for ways to keep my hands in the dirt. Landscaping jobs and organic farming internships made up most of my adolescant summers, and as a child I was a ruthless pest when permitted to descend into anyone’s garden to “try a snap pea or two”. And apologies to all the u-pick berry patches I likely cheated out of literal pounds of fruit in the past decades!

Needless to say, a big appeal of buying our rural property for me was the potential for an INDULGENTLY MASSIVE GARDEN. I want all the produce I can possible eat, whenever I want it, in every variety that catches my eye. Is that too much to ask?

I think we’ll find out within the next few months, because our gardening ambitions this growing season are honestly a little frightening. We’re growing far more food than (I think) two people can eat, but that’s all part of this first year’s experirmention. Now that I finally have the space, I want to go full steam into cultivating crops and see what our property is capable of. Worst case scenario, we gain insight into what won’t work and then refine our goals for next year.

Despite the farm experience I’ve racked up in the past decade, I am surprisingly timid about tackling projects on our property. In all my outdoor labor jobs, I’ve been part of a team with someone else calling the shots. If I’m the only person in charge of the planning, prepping, and planting, would the seeds actually sprout? It feels more likely that I’ll do something dimwitted and create a die-off. I spent more time this winter than I’d like to admit internally coiled up in anxiety, afraid to even start for fear of failure.

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%