I really am a gardener

I grew up on a farm and we’ve always had a garden.  The only time I didn’t have a garden was when I moved away for ten years.  For the first four of those years, I did have some house plants.  For the other six years, my apartment had a little balcony and I – pretty unsuccessfully – grew some plants, like potatoes and zucchini.  But about fifteen years ago I moved back to the farm to help my parents out and to have time to write.  And to have a garden.

Despite all my years gardening, it wasn’t until this week that I truly felt like a gardener.  I was at work thinking about all the things I had to do on my days off, and I realized, that even though it is barely spring and we still freeze a couple nights a week and I think there is snow in the forecast, I already feel like I’m behind in my gardening.  There are these … weed trees I’ve been trying to get rid of for the last few years, there’s some plants I want to move, there’s stuff left in the garden from last year I didn’t get around to cleaning up before the snow fell, I have raised beds I’m trying to fill, I want to move my compost bins, I need to get some seeds started, I want to get some cuttings off some apple trees ….  And it seems like every day I plan to focus on one of these things and be done with it, it rains.  Or I sprain my wrist and don’t feel like making it worse doing a bunch of heavy work.  I just need like two solid weeks of good weather, were I’m not injured, and I don’t have a hundred other things I need to be doing. 

Being a gardener is very tough.  I have no plans on quitting.