To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment.

It's nice to work on a small simple vegetable garden. No big expectations, no fluffy foo foo stuff, just vegetables. One of the three mom's who is part of this garden is highly motivated. Too much so. I feel she bites off more than she can deal with. This we have excepted because we all have our issues, but it really doesn't effect us too much directly, just her kids. But sometimes it leaches over on to us and we can get swept away with all the glory of it. Like I haven't been there or like that myself before? The point is, we just want everyone to be satisfied with what they bring to this group garden. I'm talking a small 20x8.5 foot garden, purely vegetables and herbs. One of the other mom's calls me with great concern about a "budget" for this garden because of the expectations of the motivated mom who wants three or four blueberry bushes and strawberries in half cut barrels. Nice, but not a practical first year garden. So the three or four blueberry bushes have to go and so do the barrels. So much stress is now gone, but what is next? Why did I get involved in this? Where is my sanctuary? I want to be left alone in the vegetable garden. I have to consult with two other people before I do anything? At least I'm starting to feel that way. The good part about this garden is that it is for us mom's rather than the kids. {we've tried this several times before without any interest from the kids, why bother?} They don't want to have anything to do with it until harvest time. That's fine with me. After all the planting is done, which I wish I could do by myself, I will try to show up alone when I can and enjoy the maintenance and the smell of the lilacs that surround this property that draws me there. Today is manure and peatmoss day. The sod is up! Let the tilling begin!

~"A garden is the mirror of a mind. It is a place of life, a mystery of green moving to the pulse of the year, and pressing on and pausing the whole to its own inherent rhythms."
~Henry Beston