Mistakes and happiness

So today I worked on thinning out seedlings. The rows of carrot seedlings are emerging along with the grass and weeds- and the picking out of things all less than an inch or two high was not the kind of task I was in the mood for. The crooked rows and the sod clumps left behind felt chaotic. I didn't mark the rows so I'm not sure where things ended intentionally ( I left room in each row to plant successively) and where my seeds just failed to emerge. It was a sudden jolt into reviewing and assessing. It made me mighty mighty cranky for a beautiful May day.

I have been making new beds, tilling up soil and shoving things into the ground (including fence posts) non-stop for the last 2 weeks. We've put in beans (4 kinds but still many left to get in), peas (snap and early), broccoli di rape and romanesco, beets, radishes, lettuces (how many kinds?), raspberries and strawberries, the pears and the hazelnuts, thyme, oregano, basil, mint, dill, cilantro, thunbergia, delphinium, sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, catanache, nasturtiums, hollyhocks, columbine, artemisia, sedum, and 50 lilies. The lilies I ordered from blooming bulb - which offers things in a minimum of 25 but the prices are great and they actually do have a guarantee that they will grow. I have dug up 4 new flower bed areas in addition to the asparagus garden that has lots of room for flowers. It's been a keep-on-moving kind of pace and it's felt good and I can feel the progress we are making.

But this morning- the seedlings were both a success and another moment of self-doubt. I thinned- which is not easy to do- yanking out the beginning of something that just did this tremendous job of pushing out from the soil. I couldn't connect that the jumbled mess would look like a row of carrots worth eating. I wished I had mounded the rows- pulled out more sod clumps- made more space between the rows so I didn't tromp the babies when I tried to straddle my work.

I realize it may seem a little silly to have been (and still can be) anxious about this gardening thing. With money tight- it's felt like a big investment and I can't keep the details so straight. All my great planning beforehand (more detail than I like) and then I look up and realize I've poked several seed packets into the ground and I'm not exactly sure where or what. Today I planted some glads and a dahlia and after putting the last one in began to worry that they were closer to 6" deep rather than 4. I started to dig them back out- but then didn't find them all and now I'm a bit worried that I stirred them up under the soil- maybe turning them upside down... and now none of them will grow. And the flowers especially- are a big splurge. I'll confess that we have 2 rows of fingerling potatoes- one of which is emerging fairly consistently and the 2nd row isn't. I dug at it today to see if I had planted the entire row too deeply and now they were all rotting in the ground. Maybe I could nudge them up a bit higher and it wouldn't be too late. Instead, of course, I merely lopped off the shoot that had been trying to push through. It feels like there isn't much correcting here. I feel in some ways that I'm working out some things about 'doing my best' and letting go. And I see Birkleigh leaping along beside me, while I teach her to focus and finish and do your best... and I realise gardening is going to keep on being a lot like parenting. So here we go- our first season. And my crooked carrot rows and my curvy bean rows and maybe just maybe my dug too deep dahlias will amaze me.

As the day ended, I smelled the sweet lilacs, and my eyes kept scanning over the hill into the orchard with the blooming apple and cherry trees and the linden and the redbud and the sun setting on the barn. I looked up and saw my lovely mate coming from saying her goodnights to B. If I can look up from the mistakes, I can see that this place is what happiness looks like.

Karen