How Does Your Garden Grow?

There is snow covering everything, and it's 20 degrees out.  It's been frigid for weeks, with many nights well below zero.  Welcome to Ohio in the winter.  But lately I've been thinking about plants because, after all, spring is only a few weeks away.  It'll be time to plant before you know it.

When I was a kid my birthday involved a big cookout.  The stars?  Corn and bratwurst.  The corn came from our garden, right there in the backyard, beside where we were having the party.  My parents grew all sorts of things, and used all of them.  We had fruit trees, corn, tomatoes, carrots, etc.  I don't remember much in the way of decorative plantings, frankly; it was all about stuff we would eat.

Now Miss Mox and I have a decent-sized garden beside the house (and a few decorative plantings too.)  That love of gardening must be genetic: my brother was a naturalist, and could identify anything and grow most of it, even outside of its normal climate.  My grandfather was like that too, and we enjoyed veggies from my grandparents' garden and flowers beside their house.  On walks in the woods Granddad would point out interesting (often edible) plants, and we would dig sassafras roots and pick blackberries.

I'm lucky to have met someone who is just as into gardening as I am.  We had a pretty good harvest last year, and it's already time to start planning for this year.  It won't be long before the crocuses pop up through the snow. 

Gardening is a skill, and an art.  And you just never know what the weather and soil will do each year, so it's also a lesson in patience and hope.  But it's amazing watching plants push up, and out, and climb fences and produce bumper crops.