Starting anything new feels daunting, no matter the task. If it’s something you’ve never tackled before, all the questions and unknowns can feel like insurmountable hurdles, but reframing the issue can really help make the impossible doable.
This post is my first content for an entirely new business and brand. Daunting? You bet! I’m trying to build an enterprise that allows me the freedom to live my rather unusual lifestyle, lets me do all the things I love, and share the useful knowledge and experiences of a lifetime with others in a way that is valuable. Mt Everest, maybe not, but still a sizable butte, if you ask me.
If you’ve never had a garden before, but you just have this itch and urge, just start, and keep it simple: Start where you are with what you have right now. Let me give you an example…
If you have small space, then start small…
The first garden I had was just some potted herbs on a sunny window sill in my first apartment.
Shortly after I got married, I tried growing a container garden on our sunny second floor balcony. Having no money, my husband happened to pass the Walmart garden center and saw they were tossing out the stressed baby plants that someone had neglected to water. He brought home a trunk-load of free, barely alive vegetable plants and a couple bags of soil Using whatever containers I could scrounge up, I nursed those little plants back to life and we had a thriving balcony container garden on the cheap.
A few years later, we were able to purchase our first home on a postage stamp size lot. My philosophy was “The front yard is for the neighborhood, everything else is for food,” and I meant it. My tiny back yard could only squeeze in six raised beds, herbs and lavender around the edges, a grafted espaliered apple tree against a fence, and a concord grape over a bench and trellis in a sunny corner. That tiny little garden fed our family of teenagers all summer long, sometimes even having a little extra to put by.
And from there, we bought a 16 acre farm and forest.
Each step of the way, even today on a totally different homestead in a different state and climate, every season is a chance to learn new things and an opportunity to experiment. Learning which varieties do best where, what companions thrive, how to co-exist with pests and insects, grafting, propagating, saving seeds – a gardener never stops growing.
So that’s the lesson: Don’t wait until someday when you have the perfect space to have the perfect garden! Start where you are now. If all you have is a sunny window or a tiny patio, take advantage of that opportunity. There’s no downside and there’s never a reason to wait.
Thanks for stopping by and remember to be Ever Growing!
Here are some tools that I’ve found helpful in my small space gardens that may help you too. Check ’em out!
