Gardening for Dummies

So, I know nothing about gardening.  Seriously.  I know more about rocket science, which makes me an excellent candidate for attempting to grow a garden this spring.  Like any good gardener-wannabe, I purchased several books on gardening, read ten pages, understood nothing, and decided how hard could this possibly be.  I mean, come on, doesn't food just spring from the ground.....naturally....in some places?

Rather than shoot for the moon and because my husband, well aware of my track record and black thumb (I managed to kill a plant the nursery assured was impossible to kill), strongly suggests I aim a little lower, like the back porch, instead of digging up our entire beautifully landscaped backyard, I opt for a container garden.   I did manage to grasp from my books that I need self-watering containers and seeds, so I load my two junior gardeners into the car, and we head off to navigate Lowe's, which requires a separate book.

I am familiar enough to know where the garden department is, so Annie, Connor, and I decide to tackle plant selection first.  "Mommy, you have to get strawberries!"  Anna exclaims.  "Ok," I respond, while pulling Connor's hands away from a shelf of tomatoes he is seconds away from wearing.  I walk to the lettuce section and mull over the thousands of options:   Bibb lettuce, Romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, arugula, Swiss Chard, spinach, wait, that's not a lettuce, or is it?.  Why?  Why are there so many choices?  "Mommy, strawberries.  Are these strawberries?"  "No, Annie, those are blueberries."  Ooh.  Blueberries.  I love blueberries, so I select a blueberry plant and walk away to process lettuces and look for strawberries.  As I walk away, I overhear, "Blueberries need another type to cross-pollinate."  Cross-who?  Edging closer to the couple who exude gardening confidence, I pretend to be looking for that cross-pollinating blueberry plant, so I can soak in any other gardening hints they might drop.  A frustrated, "Mommy!  Where are the strawberries?" interrupts my eavesdropping, so I begin to seek out strawberries, when I overhear a sweet voice from the buggy ask, "Mommy, can we get macaroni seeds, too?" It seems I'm not the only busybody because laughter erupts from my blueberry gardening experts, as well.

After an agonizing twenty minutes of choosing seeds, I mosey over to the soils, stand, and stare, blankly.  "What are we getting now, Mommy?" asks Anna.  "Um, we need soil for the plants." Soil, soil, where is the vegetable garden soil?  I mean seriously, how difficult would it be to put large carrots and tomato plants on  on the correct bag.  An associate clearly senses my ignorance and agony and whispers from behind, "Do you need help?"  "Yes!" I shout with such emotion she stumbles backward.  After explaining my dilemma, she shakes her head with pity and says, "This isn't where you need to be.  Let me show you what I use in my garden."  Of course, she has a garden.  Clearly, I'm the only gardening ignoramus in Birmingham.  I follow her to the gardening soils, which in my defense, are near where they keep the trees.  With soil marked off my list, I head for the containers, where Annie and Connor, in an attempt to be helpful, pull every possible container off the shelf and shove it into the cart, while I desperately try to read the information on the self-watering containers.  I choose the one that has vegetables on the label and clean up the aisle of containers over a chorus of, "This one will be good for the strawberries."  "No, that's too big.  This one, Mommy."  I race to the checkout and head home for phase 2.  Planting.

I lug all of our supplies out of the car and set up a makeshift planting station in the front yard.  Determined to make this an excellent science lesson for our home school, I assign each child a job, which is met with, "But I wanted to do this instead."  "Why does he get to water?  I want to water."  Connor picks up my pruning shears and exclaims, "I want to cut the sticky things off."  What?!  I finally convince each child to pour a package of seeds into a row, cover them, then add water.  I send A and C off to play but to "under no circumstances play in the water" so I can finish planting and watering and clean up.  A few minutes later both walk up to me soaked and whining, "How much longer?  I want a snack." Aaah, this lesson is going exactly as planned.  It's Earth Day, we are one with the soil, a real-life hands in the dirt, open air project, and my two just want to squirt each other with the water hose.

Knowing when I've been defeated, I throw the last remnants of seed packets into the trash and have the kids follow me to where I had just thrown out some old potting soil.  We dig through the soil and discover four worms hard at work tunneling.  I explain how worms help the earth and am surprised when Annie picks one up, names it Rosebud, and takes it over to our container.  "Mommy, you know what else we need to do.  We need to start saving apple cores and banana peels."  "That's right," I respond, wondering how on earth she knows about composting.   She runs off to search for more pets...worms, and my cell phone rings.  Travis, at Lowe's, picking up all the things I forgot to purchase because who knew you needed fertilizer or a watering can, is calling to confirm my list.  Connor grabs the phone, and I hear him tell his dad, proudly, "We planted seeds, Daddy.  We have to wait, but then they'll bloom and we'll have food that we can really eat."  Maybe the lesson is sticking, after all.  The kids' sudden excitement has me believing for a moment that these empty containers may actually soon be filled with real vegetables.  Just maybe......