The LoCo Funny Farm

I would like to preface this post by saying I am not the gardener of my family. Not by a long-shot. My thumbs are much more distinctly grayish-blue than green, but I garden because it’s in my blood, I guess.

My mother is a wonderful gardener and I remember a shining moment in my childhood when her DIY greenhouse was finished and the “damn grasshoppers can fuck around somewhere else” (this is paraphrasing because I don’t actually remember what she said but the sentiment rings true). Her house now looks like a duplex-style cottage out of a fairy tale, surrounded by a rainbow of beautiful flowers and a cacophany of buzzing pollinators, bird friends, and butterflies. She even harvests chokecherries from what I thought were “regular bushes” (whatever that means) and makes jam…in the middle of the city…just because she likes to (side-note: my son refers to her jam as “grammy jelly” which is both hilarious and horrifying). She is an admirable, resourceful woman to be sure.

My brother is the Business Ag degree-holder and resident Master Grower in a commercial and residential garden center that does business nationwide, meaning he oversees the growth and health of thousands of plants of all kinds. With his wealth of knowledge, tenacious grit, and his wife’s plant magic, wisdom, and botanical wizardry, they have created a literal oasis in their backyard. I’ve honestly never experienced anything like it and am continually surprised and impressed by the magical world that is their garden. Maybe in the future I’ll do a blog post that showcases their prowess.

But I digress. While my garden is meager in comparison to those of my family members, and my methods are…less conventional…I do it because I love it. I love watching things grow out of sheer stubbornness and sunshine. I love celebrating when I can cook food for my family with something that was picked in my backyard. I love the annual trips to the garden center to pick out starter plants (I’ve never really grown from seeds before and I’d like to point out that this makes my content relatable…tell your friends). I love getting my hands dirty until my sensory overload inevitably kicks in and I HAVE to wash my hands RIGHT NOW and then immediately put lotion on because the feeling of dry hands is THE biggest sensory ick.

Anyways, what was I even going to talk about in this post? Oh right, garden planning. While I would like to say that my garden prep is meticulous and thought-out after months of discussion and learning from the previous year’s haul, it’s not. Eric and I usually chat about ideas of plants that we want to grow this year and briefly discuss where we should plant them in the space. Then we go to the garden center and pick out whatever tickles our fancy and stick them in the ground, regardless of our previous discussion. But not this year. This year I am determined to try something different. I want to try some seed starters, I want to look at the garden zone for my area (which, I learned after a quick google search this morning, is 5a and 5b…I intend to ask my brother what the hell that means because it sounds like bingo numbers to me) and select plants accordingly.

After an intensive research period of three seconds, I picked some random seeds from Tractor Supply and will begin my journey. My plan is to start 11 types of plants from seeds: a mix of flowers and veggies. Broccoli, Bibb lettuce, Dill, Chives, a couple types of sunflowers, Zinnias, Calendula, Tromboncino squash, Nastursiums, and a wildflower mix.

Regardless of how and where the plants go into our garden, they must be resilient because I subscribe to the philosophy that chaos rules in nature. Survival requires the propensity for the unexpected. Will I get watered today? Will I get baked in the sun? Will a stray chicken go rogue and will I get eaten before I get the chance to flourish? A plant never knows around here. There is no strategy in symbiosis, no routine, no consideration for sun exposure or drought-resistance. To me, chaos gardening means puting in the minimum amount of effort to make plants grow. Weeding is minimal, pruning is all-but non-existent, and the plants are lucky if they get watered any given day. Truly, I am the worst gardener. We barely collect a harvest. But this gardening, this is the Funny Farm, this is THUNDERDOME! I mean, chaos gardening.

The warm weather makes me giddy to get started though, and I’m pumped to get the seeds in the dirt! Spring is springing and signs of life are everywhere, even if it looks a little messy! But life’s messy so what a metaphor for existence! Whatever, let’s get planting!