THE MESSY GARDENER

[ShelleyCheny]

A revolution of the mind brought by the sanctity of the garden and the chaos of a new family.
My life was very ordered.
I was surrounded by structure and systems. and have a tidy desk and a perfectly laid out workspace. It declared efficiency and cleanliness and complete predictability.
Then, the kids came along. Well, babies at first, and then the house, the big car, the dog , the compost bin…and the garden. The Radical shift that I really needed to change the way the neurons fired .
I started out with the weeding kit. My husband thought the dandelion patch with all those pretty yellow flowers were gorgeous. Off I went , clearing the space, decluttering and setting up my precious flowerbeds and vege patches and little fruit trees. It became a sort of therapy, a type of release from all those pent up agonizing obsessive compulsive demands of life.
I planted flowers in tidy rows, annuals in one colour, alongside perennials in another. I set up an account with the local garden shop and instantly made them wealthy in one month.
And then I discovered…bulbs, edibles, and compost!
I planted beetroot from seeds and carrots from punnets. The children started throwing leftover cherry tomatoes against a sunny wall and squishing them between their toes. The compost started kicking in with all the leftover seeds and pips from exotic fruits, and watermelons and vines began to spring out from in between the tidy rows of flowers and tiles I had arranged in anal little rows. The kids even now pull up a plant and giggle as it turns out to be a radish, or a beetroot or a carrot. They randomly bring in strawberries and tomatoes from the flower patch, or daisies that have grown wild around the lawn.
I look at gardens now with their own confluence and structure, their individual organization with amazement. I am a messy gardener, and my great and simple joys are discovering the fruits of something I may have planted several years ago. A seed of liberating wildness in the midst of a life that demands organization.

[rainbowgardener]

Love your post and love messy gardens!

I had never heard the term punnet before so I looked it up. Here's what Wiki says:

Punnet is a term used in Britain, Australia and New Zealand to describe a small basket for displaying and collecting fruits or flowers. Farmers' markets sometimes sell fruits and berries in plastic punnets. Decorative punnets are often made of felt and seen in flower and craft arrangements.

The picture looks like what we might call a strawberry basket.

But it's still not clear to me what it would have to do with carrots or how you would grow a carrot from one.

[soil]

very nice story, but you should have left the dandelions lol. there just too useful.

[gixxerific]

I prefer to garden in an organized chaos sort of way.

Nice story.

[Zapatay]

Aw Shelley - Thank you so much for sharing this. I enjoyed reading this and comparing it to myself.

I'm realizing - it's more fun watching my daughter eating the strawberries with such luster... than it is to harvest and make jam.

Taking time to enjoy what we've done:)

Thanks again - Yolanda

[katylaide]

That's a great story Shelley. I feel the same about messy gardens. Discovering you have food growing in your path is great fun. I've been gardening since last September and the hassle of planting in pretty rows and keeping everything ordered made me make my next garden bed messy. I'm inspired by Jackie French, who plants stuff and lets it grow, doing as little work as possible. I don't have any kids yet, but I can't wait til I have little ones chucking fruit at each other in my garden and spoiling their tea by filling up on strawberries and peaches.