patience is a virtue; words to garden by

Last year, in January, I attended my very first blogging conference. While this isn’t big news or even an interesting tidbit about my life worth sharing, it is an important event to me personally. You see, at this very event, I was lucky to forge a friendship with Melissa of Corbin in the Dell. We already knew of each other since we traveled in the same foodie circle in Nashville and would occasionally run into each other at Nashville Food Bloggers events but it wasn’t until that weekend that we realized just how much we had in common and how much fun we could have together (remind me to tell you about our pranks at the 2015 conference.)

beneficial insects are attracted to the garden by planting flowers and with any luck, these zinnias and marigolds will draw many.

During many conversations, we would discuss gardening, something we have in common and it led to the decision to collaborate on a project. While we both practice organic methods in the garden, our approaches could not be more different. Melissa is a true farm raised, country girl, and as you may know, I am your typical city girl who grew up in an apartment with no garden to play in. Then my husband’s job led us to Williamsburg; this put a serious wrinkle in our plans to work on a book together but luckily, with the use of email and telephones, we came up with a plan; we would attempt to grow the same plants and let our personal gardening styles be the focus as well as our inspiration for the project.

before we left Nashville, I took cuttings from our fig tree and rooted them over the winter.

During a recent phone conversation, we were both speaking of the unseasonably cool weather and how it was hindering our ability to get growing. Temperatures fluctuating wildly, rain that hasn’t fallen and plants that failed to thrive are just a few things we discussed. Gardeners play a waiting game, always. We wait for the weather to be right. We wait for seeds to germinate. We wait, and hope for rain. And even when things go perfectly as planned, we still wait for fruit to ripen, vegetables to mature and so on.

not all of the plants in my straw bale garden are from seeds, these are chard transplants and I can actually harvest some leaves now.

We won’t even talk about compost because if you think waiting on vegetables is tough, properly cured compost can take as long as a year. In the world of gardening, one must be patient, very, very, patient. Since Melissa and I are collaborating on this, we will post updates on our blogs simultaneously, please be sure to check back and see our progress. To read Melissa’s post, follow this link