The best gardening I have ever done has been by accident. The first time I tried to grow basil and some other herbs I made a garden in a little corner on the side of the apartment building I lived in. I lived with 3 other girls in an two-plex--I would call it a duplex but it was upstairs/downstairs not side by side. We had a little strip of grass on the side of the house and I made a cute little garden surrounded by rocks. I planted thyme, oregano, majoram, and basil. The basil I purposely planted never bloomed. The thyme and oregano didn't make it for very long. The majoram took off and grew like crazy. I had some leftover basil seeds that I threw in the little garden and lo and behold--THAT basil grew like crazy! It grew a couple feet tall and I made loads of pesto from those basil plants. Remember that Brie? The good old days.....That was my first accidental gardening incedent.
My second is more recent. We had a garage sale a couple of months ago and my mom brought some items for the sale. One of the items was a basket with dried gourds of all shapes and sizes. Not a huge surprise that no one wanted the gourds. My mom said they were about 10 years old. The kids found them in the leftover pile in the garage and thought they were fun to roll on the ground and throw like balls. They REALLY thought it was fun when Ewan stepped on one and saw all the seeds inside. I was working in our flower beds and the boys brought out several of the gourds to play with. Ewan decided they all needed to get squished on the sidewalk. Ugh, what a mess that was. I decided to use the water hose to spray all the crunchy shells and seeds onto the edge of the grass thinking that those seeds were sooooo old that the likelihood of them growing was minimal. Well, much to my surprise we came back from our vacation in Canada and we had plants growing. Being the scientist that I am (and fun mommy of course) I convinced Jon to leave the plants alone to see what would happen. Thank you, honey! We have been enjoying our accidental squash garden very much. Ewan and Isaac like the pretty orange flowers and watching the gourds grow. Some days it seems like they double in size! I took some pictures of it today so you could enjoy my accidental garden too!
I'm a Texan born woman transplanted across the ocean to live in England with my husband and four boys. Aside from being a stay-at-home mom, I teach birth classes for couples who want to birth naturally. My blog is about my life and how I stay sane through it all.
1 comment:
Your pastor husband that I am I wonder if their isn't an illustration in there somewhere, honey. Maybe about the "accidental" seeds you plant in other people's lives that have grown. Maybe about the way we can't control what happens to the word of God when we deliver it (e.g. God makes it grow). Maybe it's that we shouldn't discount the old truths in our lives...God can still produce fruit from things we learned long ago... hmmm... i wonder...
Post a Comment