The Gardening Blues

I am just so not into it this year.

I have mentioned before that since we have no idea when we are moving – but end of summer is almost a definite- I am not planting a garden like I usually would, because the heartbreak of leaving it for someone else after all that toiling away and money spent would suck.

Plus to be honest, in the whole scheme of house selling, having a yard that looks like an overwhelming amount of “work” is a huge turn off for potential buyers.

My garden efforts look like and are a lot of work.

So no huge growing projects.

However I feel like I am completely turned around, out of sorts, not “in season”.  There’s something hanging over me like a cloud, and I think it’s the gardening blues.

My back garden beds should be bursting with lettuce, tomatoes, a million squash and more.

I threw in some potatoes since the baby ones will be ready to eat soon enough and all sorts of beans in my garden boxes that can come with me.

I didn’t get the joy of planning all my vegetables, instead it was a half-hearted effort of thinking of a few things that will mature before we leave.

Most of my time in the yard is now collecting my thoughts on how to transplant what I need to the new yard.

Such as these irises below. They came from my grandmothers yard in Manitoba and I simply cannot leave without some for my new place.

Ditto on the tiger lilies and ferns that I transplanted from there as well.

These are what I consider the most literal form of heritage plants, every time I see them I remember my grandma’s love of flowers and gardening and thus remember her.

My honeyberries are already transplanted into buckets and if I didn’t already love them to the moon and back this would have cemented it. They are thriving in 3 gallon buckets. Thriving, I tell you. Berries galore, beautiful greenery and growth like you wouldn’t believe. In buckets.

They are one of the earliest berries to mature as you can see below, they are already fully grown and will just start to ripen from now on. They are a delightful June berry.

The trick I have found is that once they are ripe, leave them on the bush for another 3-4 days. I know a few people who have found the flavor sour or unnapealing. The berries will not fall off, in fact I think they appear to be ripe sooner than they actually physically are. Last year as soon as they were their lovely blue/purple hue, I controlled my impulses and left them on another few days.

It works like a charm. Leave them on as long as you possibly can, they ripen up until just as sweet as a Saskatoon.

My globeflowers are in full bloom which adds some wonderful color to the back.

In fact so many things are growing it depresses me, I look at it and think “five years of work and now I am leaving it all”. Not that the 5 years weren’t wonderful fun and I enjoyed every minute and mistake, but I am fervently hoping that the next owner of my yard appreciates what I have done.

And doesn’t pull up my beauties and lay sod over them.

Or grow ugly things.

Or takes out my Saskatoon bushes…or…or.. the list is endless.

I do have planters of Swiss Chard and spinach growing, I am trying out some squash in containers as well, because my lord, I have to grow something to eat, moving or not! It’s just not the same as getting down and dirty daily in the garden.

And it’s not even the work of the new place, that part excites me as I know what I want to do and how. It’s the leaving behind of my green babies that I can’t take with me that sucks.  Gardener’s can tell you exactly when they bought each plant/bush/tree,  where they bought it and how long ago, the creation of a yard to some is so much more than greenery to please the eye.

It’s almost a timeline of your life in a place, how my yard stood still the summer my daughter was only 5/6 months old and nothing new was put in, to the last year when with older children I went crazy wild with new Saskatoons.

The rose bush that my son helped me pick out at Holes when he would have been only 2.

The raspberries that chubby little hands have picked for the past 3 years. The strawberries that stained little lips.

Oh seriously, I am going to make myself cry here if I don’t stop. It’s bad enough my youngest is going in to Grade One and leaving her Momma next fall, but now I am leaving the yard where my babies played, learned to garden, and ran around nekkid in.

I am going to just think happy thoughts about all the shopping  I get to do for the new yard.

Perhaps consider a new climber and swings for the kids.

All the space I am going to have to garden.

A great new deck.

And a Margarita machine to match.

Better.