Mary Mary Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells

And pretty maids all in a row.

I have no clue what that means, do you?

This past weekend P and I decided to plant our first garden in 3 years. Back when we lived in central Texas, we had a huge garden. We had 3 9X9 plots that we fertilized with goat poo from our neighbors. The soil was amazing.

Now that we live in the middle of Dallas, those 9x9 plots at our small house in the country are gone, but that does not mean we can't bring some country into the city.

We started out Saturday morning with a small plot of land that looked like this.

 We started out cleaning up the plot. We removed the trash, the dog poo, and leaves. We tilled the soil by hand for a bit, then realized we needed some help.

 I went to Home Depot and rented this guy for a few hours. This tiller was fast.

 (Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, I love using powerful machines.)

 After cleaning everything up, tilling the land, and leveling the space, we started planting. We planted spinach, ice burg lettuce, onions, tomatoes, squash, jalapenos, and bell peppers.

 The final product.

 The thing that I loved about the entire process was not necessarily the planting, it was being outside with P, it was starting a project, and finishing it. It was the dirt under my nails, the sun on my skin, and the satisfaction that I accomplished something that I started.

It was a break from the norm. It was something different than usual. So much of my weekends are spent "prepping" for the next week. I run the the store, I spend hours in the kitchen chopping, dicing, and sauteing. I do the laundry, clean the house, clip my coupons. This weekend, I did some of that, but not everything. We ate out 4 times this weekend because we were too busy doing the garden to cook. I did not prep a single meal for the week. Sunday night at 7:00, my floors were dirty, the laundry was not done, and I was scrambling to figure out what to eat for lunch on Monday.

And guess what, I figured out what to eat, I did a few loads of laundry so far this week, my floors are filthy, but the world did not end because everything in the house is not perfect. In fact, its been a pretty good week so far.

I started thinking that I really need to give my to do lists a break, especially on the weekends. Its ok for me to unwind, enjoy my time off, and not spend half of my 48 hours off thinking about the week ahead.

It felt great to spend all day outside. It was so nice to turn off the t.v. We blasted Zac Brown on the radio, and worked.

This was one of the best weekends I have had in ages.

When was last time you took a break from the norm?

Are you a gardener?