Gardening Without Guilt

I say "without guilt" because, for the first time I can remember, I have not committed to planting anything, anywhere, for any reason. Kate and Kevin have made the garden their own personal project; Kevin became fascinated with the Topsy-Turvy tomato planters when he saw them on TV, and Kate works in the garden a lot at school, so it worked out well. So far they've planted several different types of annuals, several different herbs, and even the biodegradable soap container (which contained baby's breath seeds, according to the package) that we got from Target yesterday. Kevin did a lot of research on the Internet and made a raised bed, since we mostly have red clay in the ground around our house. He broke it up into twelve 1'x1' sections.







It looks great, and they put a lot of time into it. My contribution thus far has been to make the marker in the upper right-hand corner for the baby's breath:

I have to admit, I feel really good about letting go of the idea of gardening. Every year before this, I would spend money on seeds and soil and plants, and every year my enthusiasm for it would wane and I would end up letting it all wither and die (all the while feelings guilty, of course). But now I can partake of the bounty of the garden without worrying about letting anyone down. It is not my garden. I just take the pictures of it.

I am totally fine with not having any responsibilities with the garden. A recovering control freak has no business working in a garden, anyway; so few things can be controlled with nature that it's sure to end badly.

This is a good day.