It’s gardening season and I couldn’t be more thrilled! Due to the pandemic and lockdown, I got a bit of a later start to gardening this year. We’ve only been going out for essential trips, which has meant only groceries. However, one of the grocery stores we go to does have a garden center. It is completely outdoors and had plenty of precautions in place, like one-way only aisles and plastic shields for the cashier/checkout area. When we scoped out their garden centre the week before (read: drive very slowly past the area to assess the situation), it seemed like it would be a pretty “safe” shopping option for our gardening needs. With that in mind, I started drafting my list.
We went a little crazy at the garden center last year, so I had plenty of empty planters that were begging to be filled. I can also see my little garden plot every day when I’m sitting at my desk at work. So every day I am reminded I could be watching my garden grow. It also means a lot to me this year, because planting and gardening remind me of my mom. I think gardening is going to be an extra cathartic experience for me this year.
We lost her in early winter. We do not follow many Chinese traditions, but it is customary to mourn someone for 100 days. Her 100 days ended around the spring. And I had mourned heavily. Even before she was gone. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of working through my journey of mourning, which is something that I may go into in another post someday. I will always have my grief, but I was ready to move on from mourning her death. And so gardening is one way I can celebrate my mom. I expect a few more rough patches this year, but hopefully, the act of putting down some roots (pun intended) will help anchor me as I move through the “firsts” of things, like Mother’s Day and her birthday this year.
This year, I decided to stick to a color scheme. Normally, I like to buy whatever bright and unique and catches my eye. But when I was browsing some websites to get my gardening fix, I noticed a section on the page called “colour theory” and realized I should try for a more cohesive look this year.
We picked up swiss chard, kale, an orange pepper plant, a strawberry plant, mint, and a bunch of tomatoes. My collard greens that I planted last year have made a reappearance in their planter, so we’re excited to tuck into those this time around. For florals, we picked up lilies, geraniums, begonias, petunias, pansies, ipomoea, a trailing ivy (can’t find the tag now), bacopas, and creeping jenny (my favourite!). I made matching planters for the ones on our upper patios, as well as hanging baskets, and then freestyled the other planters. I have never bought plants or veggies from Superstore before, but so far they look pretty promising! I’ll make another post when everything starts to grow in and fill out. It would be nice to report that I am done with garden purchases for the year, but I will probably have to make one more. I need to get soil amendments because I didn’t do “crop rotation” and am crossing my fingers my tomatoes still do well!
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